The Third
by hts911
Summary: They said she died, and for a while, he believed it. But when her past starts circulaiting to him, he wants to find the real truth. And he won't stop at anything to uncover it.
1. Prologue

_**AN: This is the official beginning of my new project "The Third", which I was originally going to call "I Am Number Three" but just when the idea came to me I saw the movie preview for I Am Number Four and didn't want to get anyone's hopes up on thinking that's what this is.**_

_**Despite how short the prologue is I promise actual chapters will be longer. I will say upfront to expect a lot of flashbacks in this story because they help make the story easier to understand and give more definition to the sort of romance that Nel and Grimmjow have.**_

_**Disclaimer: My Japanese may be stronger than most of my friend's but in all actuality, it's quite shitty. So please tell me how it'd be possible that I created an anime in a language I can barely speak. But in case you do know how that'd be possible, I'll say I don't own Bleach.**_

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**Prologue**

"I feel perfect," she had whispered to him, the words ringing so sweetly within his ears.

Green hair scattered out on the pillow and a dazed look on her face, Nel was the image of nostalgia. The moment was too soft, too calm. The moment was on that did not often visit the couple's raging waters, and both were hell bent on savoring it.

In the kitchen, shards of glass and small drops of blood littered the floor, the picture of the rage that had smothered the room not even an hour ago. If either had the desire to, neither would be able to recall what the argument was even about. Who broke what, what broke whose skin, who decided to put an end to it; none of those details were important. They never were.

Fingers had tangled into hair, lips pressed desperately against lips. Nails raked over skin as both tried to consume the other. They battled, they fought. He called her, he marked her, he _claimed_ her. And she was his.

And then they lay there, her breath mingling with his, as both willed themselves not to think. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, for instinct told him that if he eased up, she'd leave him. He just knew she'd leave him.

"Where the hell are you going, Nel?" he asked, the words piercing through the silence.

_She was still in his arms, still in his arms._

She didn't answer, closing her eyes, and allowing her lashes the privilege to kiss her cheeks. And then she opened them, slowly, peering at him with that dazed, lost look in her eyes.

_"I'm right where I want to be."_

Her fingers trailed down his arm, taking his hand into both of hers. He looked at her, giving her a warning glare, almost daring her to try to leave after they had come this far.

_She was going, she was going._

And then she said the words, those taboo words, which completely ripped the world to pieces.

_"I feel perfect."_

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_**AN: Tell me what you think, or don't. I mean reviews are nice, but they don't really make me update faster because I post when I personally have the opportunity to. (Which means don't try to put updates on a schedule because they'll be way random.)**_


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: So here I am up and moving with the first chapter. I will apologize if anything that happens with the cops seems a little off, but I'm not a cop, I don't know any personally, and getting all your information from what happens on TV can't help because a lot of that stuff is against code. What I do know I learned from the Investigation Discovery channel, and even then, procedure had to be altered for the sake of the story going according to plan. Either way, I hope you all enjoy this next chapter.  
Disclaimer: Do I **_**really**_** have to say this again? I don't own Bleach.**

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**Chapter 1**

It was the second day since Nel had disappeared from his life when the cops came to pay him a visit. Their knocks reverberated across the walls of the apartment, loud and strong, breaking him out of the stupor of the morning. To anyone else the knocks would have been intimidating. To him, they were just a recollection of the past he once sought so hard to forget.

He swallowed a good third of the coffee in his mug, barely noticing the way the hot liquid scorched the back of his throat, before making his way to the door. He took another drink, this time a mere sip, and opened the door to reveal two cops. One had flaming red hair and was coated in poorly concealed tattoos while the other was more refined with neatly done up black hair and an overly pretentious air about himself. They made his eyes burn. It was way too early in the morning to be dealing with this shit.

So he simply took a whiff of his coffee into his nasal passages, glared at the men in front of him, and asked the one question on his mind. "What the hell do ya' want?"

The red haired cop looked first taken aback, and then slightly offended, but it was his companion's reaction that really got him. The uppity man had the audacity to frown at him as if he weren't worth crap and then meet his glare head on, before asking in a cold, calculated voice, "Are you Grimmjow Jaggerjaquez?"

One eyebrow raised, he looked the cop in the eyes and answered with a sharp, "What of it?"

It wasn't as if Grimmjow had done something that he should be guilty of. In fact, he had given up doing anything that would give him a direct 'go to jail' card years ago. Unless those cops were there to arrest him for buying bootleg DVDs, then they had nothing on him. But still, there was a slight chance that he could be in deep shit, and if that were the case, then there was no way he was going out like a punk.

The redhead looked up at his tense companion in question before turning back to Grimmjow. He pulled a small, flat rectangular piece of plastic out of his pocket, holding it up so that the man in front of him couldn't see what was on the cover.

"Do you know this woman?" the man asked simply, almost sympathetically, before flipping the card, so Grimmjow could see the front.

The card was made of a shiny white plastic, with a picture of a young woman in the upper left hand corner. She had hair in an obnoxious green color and a peachy pink mark running across the bridge of her nose. Next to the picture was a name in bold print: Neliel Tu Oderschvank. The woman's information was written underneath that. Date of birth, height, weight, hair color, eye color; it was all there.

Grimmjow glared at the card, the irritated expression on his face becoming more prominent. He took another sip of his coffee, before gazing up at the red haired man. Taking another quick look at the picture on the card, he allowed his face to slip into a bitter smirk.

"Nel?" he asked, his question coming out more as a statement. "Of course."

The cops exchanged looks, the black haired one nodding slightly. "I am Officer Kuchiki," he said. "And this is my partner Officer Abarai. May we step in?"

Taking a moment to scrutinize each cop, Grimmjow considered the idea of letting them into his home. Really, he didn't want just anyone in his space, especially if said 'anyone' could have information that may leave him in blind fury. By how things were going, the idea of that blind fury coming along was extremely possible. At least with them in the hall he could just shut the door on them, if they said something he didn't like, but in his house…he didn't know what could happen.

Rather than taking the chance of any of his neighbors hearing what the cops had to say, Grimmjow went against his better judgment and let them in. He closed the door behind them, not offering either a seat, and leaned up against the kitchen counter. He sat down his coffee and crossed his arms. "So whatcha' got for me?"

Abarai opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by his counterpart clearing his throat. It was obvious to Grimmjow who was in charge of this operation, so he turned his focus on Kuchiki, making sure to keep the firey haired one in his peripheral vision.

"Mr. Jaggerjaquez," began the black haired officer, "have you been aware of the disappearance of a Ms. Neliel Tu Oderschvank?"

Grimmjow nodded slowly, not liking where this sounded as if it were going. "Of course I noticed; she lives here. Though I wouldn't call it a 'disappearance' seeing as she's only been gone for two days. The woman probably wanted time to herself. She's weird like that. What of it?"

The cops ignored his last question, diving straight at the slight bit of information that he released. "Weird like how?" asked Officer Abarai.

Grimmjow's gaze morphed into a full out heated glare, not liking how the men were digging into their business. "If you don't know already, then maybe you two should try harder at your jobs. It really shouldn't be that difficult to discover with jobs like yours," he answered gruffly. "Now what about Nel?"

Most likely noticing the tension the red haired officer was causing, Kuchiki stepped in. "Your conclusion was the original one that the team had come to, but due to complications this morning we have been forced to suspect otherwise."

Bells and whistles went off in Grimmjow's mind. This was about to get bad real fast; he could feel it. He knew something was up the morning he woke up to find her half of the bed empty. The idea was even more affirmed when she wasn't in any of the usual places. He had so desperately tried to convince himself that this was just like all the other times despite the little voice in his head that told him otherwise. And now it was all about to be thrown right back into his face.

His jaw clench, the glare he aimed on the cops increasing tenfold. Not now. Out of all the times to hear this, he didn't want to hear it right now. Half his mind dared them to let the words spill out their mouths and take the repercussions later, while the other half told him to just shut the fuck up and be rational. He created his own limbo.

The red haired cop tensed up, before pulling out a sheet of paper from his jacket. His voice unsteady and wavering, he began to read.

"At approximately 5:30 A.M. this morning the body of a young woman was found in an alley on the outskirts of the Red Light District. The body was identified by ID as that of Neliel Tu Oderschvank. An ambulance was immediately called, but the victim was pronounced dead on arrival."

Anger spread like wildfire into Grimmjow's mind at the words coming out of the officer's mouth. Lies. How much he wished to believe there was little truth to those words. Nel wasn't dead…she _couldn't _be. And yet…the thought of it was so extremely logical, while at the same time, it made no sense. But one thing, the thing he feared the most, was the thought that refused to stop racing circles through his mind.

Hands clenched onto the wood of the counter's edge, as he tried to remember how to speak. The words, _those_ _words,_ the ones that so desperately wanted to tumble out of his mouth were there, but they were lost on him. So he said the only thing he could. "How?"

It seemed to take the officers hours to understand the meaning of the on word he had said. Maybe he wasn't authorized to know. Maybe they thought if he knew, he would do something drastic. Both were quite sound possibilities in his mind, but he wanted to know. He had to know.

Officer Abarai swallowed, seeming to have difficulty saying the words that were to come. The man breathed in deep, then let it go, refusing to take his eyes off that sheet of paper.

"Due to the location of which we found the body," the officer began, "we are at this moment unsure of the specific details of death. The victim was struck in the head by a blunt object, but being that it was raining into the morning, the initial cause of death may have been hypothermia. The main factor in the investigation is the location at which her body was found…"

The officer stopped there; probably wary of the amount of information he had just divulged to a man that was known to be very temperamental to the police. None the less, Grimmjow knew what they were getting at. Nel was found in the Red Light District. The question that remained was why was she there?

Just the thought of what she could have been there for made the fury within Grimmjow rise. The simple idea that someone had put their hands on what was his was enough to make him go blind with rage. Whoever had the audacity to desecrate _his_ woman and then just leave her there for dead, they…

His knuckles turned white from the force of the grip he had on the countertop. Letting out a slow breath, he tried to calm himself to no avail. His jaw was clenched, anger seeping out his mouth as he asked, "Did they touch her?"

The red haired officer looked up from his paper at this question, his eyes quickly flashing to Grimmjow, then to his partner, but even in those mere seconds Grimmjow could see what those eyes held for him. Pity, sympathy, and uncertainty of the future. He just knew the man was thinking about how lucky it was that it hadn't happened to him.

He could visually see the cops thinking over whether or not it would be appropriate to tell him the truth. "I'll ask again," he ground out, fingers grasping desperately on the countertop to give him something, _anything,_ to hold onto. "Did they touch her?"

His repetition of the question made the cops snap out of it, or at least the black haired on seemed to be released from his stupor. The man's face was devoid of all emotion as he began to speak, cool, calm, and collected.

"From what the witness described of the body the possibility that she was not sexually assaulted remains strong, seeing as the body was still clothed, but we can't be sure until reports come back from the lab. At this moment we are not sure as to whether we are dealing with a homicide or a job gone wrong. Until those tests results come back and we are able to form a solid autopsy report, we won't be sure."

Grimmjow wasn't exactly sure as to what tipped him off to what the man was implying. It could have been the accusation in the man's voice or the way he described the scenario of a 'job' gone wrong, but it was quite obvious as to what this man believed had happened. That man was convinced that this was just the typical type of murders that happened in these kinds of areas. That man was convinced that _she_ was just another one of the faceless creatures of dirty money from strippers and prostitution. But, Grimmjow_,_ he _knew_ better.

'Nel wouldn't,' he thought. 'She would never.'

"Out," he growled, the words slipping out his mouth at a lower volume than he would have liked. The words were lost on the cops in front of him. They looked between themselves, confused as to what he was trying to say. He decided to clarify. "Get the fuck out."

His anger clouded his vision and muffled the sound before it could reach his ears, leaving him unable to fathom the happenings of the world around him. He heard voices, a few words exchanged, and then the soft click of the door was closing, but for what he witnessed of it, he might as well have been underwater.

That feeling, that vile feeling, it climbed up the back of his throat, releasing itself in the form of a strangled cry of frustration. His mind pounded, waging a battle between what he did know and everything he _thought_ he knew. Without his control, his arm shot out, sweeping in a large arc across his kitchen counter. The mug shattered into hundreds of ceramic pieces, coffee splashing out all over his floor, as a remembrance of the anger clouding this kitchen mere _days _ago.

Lies, he figured. The cops had to be feeding him lies. In no way, shape, or form could this series of _bullshit_ really be happening. They must have found the wrong person. They must have come to the wrong conclusion because there was no way on hell that Nel, _his Nel_, could be dead. And yet, that tiny piece of his brain told him to just suck it up because the truth of the matter was that she was dead and nothing he did would bring her back. One question rang out through his head: Would he listen?

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**AN: There goes my introduction to Nel's. Having Google and Wikipedia on my phone was a big help on finding out about red light districts which I knew about but I didn't really **_**know **_**enough about to decide if Nel could die there. So I am very glad both those sites were invented even though I'd never use Wiki for an essay since its still not that reliable.  
In the part when they were talking about a job gone wrong, Byakuya was basically calling Nel a prostitute. I was looking for a term other than 'job' but nothing else would come to me. So, thanks for reading, and there will be a flashback in the next chapter.**


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: So I actually wanted to post this up yesterday, but my internet's been all fucked up so...it had to wait till today. On the plus side, anyone who's been waiting for a flashback, well, today's your lucky day, because that's what all the italics in the begining of this chappie are. Hope ya'll (that's my bit of country twang speakin') like it was hard to get out.  
Disclaimer. Check the prologue because I'm already tired of writing this.**

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**Chapter 2**

_Drops of rain beat against the ground, touched down like hands on a drum before sloshing back up into the grass. It vibrated the world, a steady instrument that echoed within his ears. He heard it, he saw it, he _felt_ it. It raced through his veins, creating a symphony throughout his body. Deep inside him, it battled it out with his body's own steady drum. Thump, thump, splash. Thump, thump, splash._

_From all the way across the park he could still make out her figure, hiding behind the tears of heaven's heartbeat. She was a muss of green within a cloud of foggy gray, but in no way did she help to brighten the scenery. She just blended, she simply blended._

_Letting out a low curse, he made his way over to the bench on which she sat. 'What a mess,' he thought. 'She's a straight up damn mess.' Her mass of green hair was matted down with the weight of the water, clinging on to whatever it could come in contact with. Hazel eyes were glazed over, staring off into the distance at something he knew he'd never be able to see while she bit her lip in silent contemplation. Her knees were brought up in her chest, wrapped ever so tightly in her arms, like she believed if she let go they would wash away in the wind. And despite the elements, never once did she move._

_Putting a hand on her shoulder, he shook her body in an attempt to shake her from the recluses of a mind that anyone could drown in. He snapped in front of her face, fingers inches away from her eyes._

"_Nel?" he called out slowly. Catching the sudden glimpse of recognition in her eyes, he stepped back and flicked her lightly on the forehead. "Dumbass."_

_She gazed up at him, mind still half gone. "Grimmjow?"_

_He rolled his eyes, taking the baseball cap off his head and tossing it to Nel. "Who else did you think it was?" he asked gruffly, pulling the hood of his jacket over his head. He turned to look at Nel who was staring down at the hat, utter confusion clouding her face. He growled. "Hey, woman. I'm obviously trying to be nice. So instead of acting like you've never seen a hat before, put the damn thing on so we can get the fuck out of here."_

_Still half dazed, she put the cap onto her head and slowly stood to her feet. When he saw she was ready, he grasped her by the arm, immediately pulling her in the direction of the car, thrusting her in the seat when they arrived. He got in, starting up the engine and pulling out of the parking lot._

_The silence within the car washed over them, basking them both in its eerie chill. Rarely did this ever happen and neither could remember a time when the sound of something, anything, was not gracing their ears. Neither of them could really stand the quiet for extended periods of time. Grimmjow just wanted to know which one of them was gong to break first._

"_You're going the wrong way," Nel whispered, as he turned left instead of their usual right._

"_I know where I'm going," he slipped back, a tinge of irritation tainting his voice. "Besides, we both know you don't want to go back home now anyways."_

_She sighed softly before leaning down and turning on the radio. The music that drifted out was slow and breezy, caressing his mind to calm down, when he was locked into hyper drive. His grip tightened on the steering wheel. He couldn't handle the fake element of peace that he knew she was trying to fill the car with._

_He stopped at the light, noticing how empty the streets seemed to be. He took a quick glance at Nel's figure, her head resting gently against the cool glass of the window, wondering how long her mood would last this time._

"_I love this song," she whispered, and he wasn't sure if the words were directed at him or if they were just an attempt to muffle out the quiet._

"_I don't." And he left it at that._

_He could practically feel her rolling her eyes. "Of course _you_ don't like it."_

_Why wouldn't she stop whispering?_

_And then she joined in with the singing, lips moving, but only half the words actually coming out. She stopped singing for a moment, trading off for swaying in tune with the instruments and mouthing the words, before joining in half-heartedly. "-'Give the ocean that I took from you so one day you could find it in the sand. And hold it in your hands again'."_

_He didn't want to listen. He did. It was quiet, while at the same time the car ride had suddenly became all too loud. He couldn't take it. So immersed in his thoughts, he barely noticed when she cut off, her fingers tracing aimless patterns across the window's condensation._

"_Have you ever done something so terrible, it seemed to kill the whole world?" she suddenly asked him. Her voice so faint it was a miracle that he could hear it over the radio._

_He didn't know what she was getting at with that question. It must have been her mind drifting off again, her trying to pull him into places that neither of them would want to go to. He didn't want to answer. In fact there wasn't the possibility that he ever could. Truth be told, he didn't know. Heavy was heavy and to know if anything was that dangerous, you'd have to ponder it for a while. And that was something he'd promised the both of them that he wouldn't do. So he just chose to keep his mouth shut._

_They drove for five more minutes, the tense silence even more threatening than the one before it, before he parked in the lot of a convenience store. He killed the engine, about to ask if she needed anything, but the words that she said next beat the question out his mind._

_Fingers clenched tensely in her lap, knuckles frost white, as she stared ahead into the dirty gray around them. "You know I'd do almost anything," she whispered, and once again he couldn't fathom who the words were directed to, "If I could just take it all back."_

The sun shone brightly through his windows, in stark contrast with how he felt. That dream, no. It wasn't a dream. That _memory_, where the hell had it came from?

He reached his arm out across the bed, expecting it to meet warm flesh, only to be brought the imminent surprise when the other occupant was not to be found. And just like every other morning for the past five days, it all came back to him. Nel, gone, dead, killed, _gone_, police, Red Light, investigation, _gone_. The little facts shot right back at him, piercing into his very being like bullets, for those were the facts that he strived to forget.

All his body craved was for him to roll over, like everything was fine and dandy as if nothing had ever happened. All his heart wanted was to be far from wherever the hell _she_ had been. His arms felt empty, his body cold from missing the usual warmth that had been held so closely to it. He couldn't…he didn't…it was just.

Nothing would fit right inside his mind. All his thoughts were scattered out and only half complete; it was a surprise he could do _anything_. For those five days since the cops came, all he could do was act on instinct, on all the things his body didn't need his mind for. Because as far as he was concerned, his mind didn't know anything.

Somewhere inside of him, he dully remembered that something was happening today. Something important. Something about Nel. And that alone was reason enough for him to get up. So he washed up, changed his clothes, and made his morning coffee, all on auto-pilot as his cluttered mind tried to figure out what exactly was planned for the day.

A knock came from his door, slow and steady. It was nothing like the ones that had came from the cops the other day. He sipped on his drink, deeming his visitor as unimportant and willing them to just go away. The knocks paused for a moment before starting up again at a much more urgent pace.

Growling, Grimmjow practically slammed his coffee on the counter and made his way over to the door. "What the f-." He had came fully prepared to release all his pent up frustration on whoever had the audacity to disturb him so early in the morning, only to find the hallway completely empty.

He kicked his foot out, about to go find whoever was just knocking, only to have his foot meet a slight resistance. On his floor was a small package wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a jewelry box, with only one name on it. No from, no return address, or expecting location; only the name of the person who was to receive it: Neliel Tu Oderschvank.

Just looking at that name on the label could have been a good enough reason for him to have nothing to do with it. The box, the package, whatever was in it, was infected. Completely and totally infected with the dead memories of _her_. And yet he couldn't help himself.

He picked it up, feeling how light it was in his hands. Shaking it gently beside his ear, he was surprised to find that it didn't make a sound. You could say that he was curious as to what was being held within that box.

Fighting the voice in the back of his head that told him to just toss the box back into the hallway and close the door so he could pretend that none of this had ever happened, Grimmjow closed the door, bringing the small package inside with him. It wasn't until he had set the small item on the counter that he noticed how badly his hands were shaking. He pulled them to his sides, clenching them in tight fists training all his attention onto that item, that _one_ item. Should he open it?

It must have been at least an hour that he sat there, looking at that brown wrapped item in front of him, that question resounding deep within his mind. His feet hurt from supporting the weight of his body, and his fingers screamed in pain from being curled so tightly, but all he could think about was that package. He would've walked away, he would've stopped right there. But then he heard it, that faint voice in his head, her faint voice in his head telling him, coaxing him, to just get on with it.

'Go ahead and open it,' it whispered to him. And he complied.

His fingers sung out their relief as Grimmjow slowly flexed them, before reaching out for the package. He shuffled from one foot to the other, feeling how rough the paper was beneath his skin. Then, in one second, it was all over as he ripped the paper off, revealing a black box with a lid fitted on top. He pulled it off, preparing himself for what was inside.

Velvet. It was the first thing he felt as his fingers traced around the inside of the box. The velvet was so plush, in its folded state that it was a mystery to him how anybody had managed to get it to fit inside. He picked up the square, watching the way its white color washed over his counter. And right in its dead center lay a small square sheet of paper.

Blood red in color, he picked it up in his hands, amazed by how expensive the paper merely _felt_ beneath his fingers. The words that coated it were written in a smooth cursive with black ink, not one letter even slightly out of shape. Raising the sheet up to his face to read it, he hesitated, wondering for a second, just a split second, if he really wanted to know what message the sender had for her. And then the moment was gone.

'Dear Ms. Oderschvank,

My colleagues and I would like to express our gratitude at the sheer amount of cooperation that you have displayed to us this past month. The work that you have put into turning this business into an empire shall not go unnoticed. We congratulate you on your accomplishment and are awaiting your arrival.'

The paper wasn't signed, he realized, as he crumpled it in his hands and tossed it onto the ground before him. He didn't understand. In fact, that was probably the point of all of this. But she, _she_ would know what was happening because she was the one who had started all of this.

He pulled the blanket off the counter, throwing it onto the ground with the paper. He felt lied to. He felt betrayed. For the past _month_, most likely longer, she had been going behind his back and…and…he didn't know. All he knew was that whatever she shit she had gotten herself into had cost her life. So what did she think was just so damn important?

Another series of knocks rang out through the apartment, this time accompanied by shrill voices. The knocks, he realized, were those of the cops. The voices he heard were those that had always imprinted into his mind as the most annoying sounds that he had ever heard: Pesche and Dondochakka; Nel's brothers.

'The box,' Grimmjow thought. He didn't exactly know why, but he felt that he shouldn't just leave it contents out in the open. Whatever Nel had done, he wasn't prepared to have everyone else know about. Not Pesche, not Dondochakka, and definitely not those cops. If it became important to the investigation, he'd tell. But right now, with the mindset of the police, he wasn't sure if he could trust them with this information. So he bent down, picking up the wad of red paper, before turning to pick up the sheet of velvet and froze. Right in the middle of the fabric, presumably on the opposite side of which the note had lay, was one number. Ornately stitched with black thread in a gothic font was the number 3.

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**AN: So yeah, it kind of short, but I had to cut it there for a reason. On the note of the flashback, I challenge you all to just try and guess what two things about Nel it was hinting. One is obvious and the other was also hinted at in Chapter 1 (i.e. "Weird like how?"). They both are actually way important in the story line and since this is somewhat of a "mystery" some people like to try and figure things out before the end of the story. I can say that I've already written out all of chapter 3 in the time of my internet outage so all I have to do is type it up and it should be up by Monday. So, yeah, thanks to everyone who's read this far and expect the story to start to pick up more soon.**

**P.S.- The song playing on the radio that Nel's singing to is Sleep All Summer which is St. Vincent and Laurent but more commonly known for its Crooked Fingers cover. The whole song isn't really relevant to the story, but the lines that Grimmjow remebers of it (the ones actually in the flashback) sort of reinforce what Nel's telling him. Don't get to wrapped up in it because this story isn't about the song, but you should listen to it anyway because its really...I don't have the words to describe it.**


	4. Chapter 3

**AN: So here goes the third chapter of The Third which I will admit was kind of a bitch to write. Even though it was hard I know there will be more difficult chapters in the future so I suppose I'll live. Besides, I somewhat like this chapter, but please tell me if you think its a bit too fast in the pace of events. That really is the main thing about it that was giving me nerves. So...yeah. I hope you guys like this one.

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Chapter 3

The smooth fabric bunched up in his fists, as he took a closer look at the number embroidered into its center. 3. He knew that 3. Countless times, countless moments, he had seen it splayed out on her arched back or laid out flat as she slept soundly. It was _that_ three. It was the same one _she_ had, stretching down the arc of her flesh covered spine, so hard to miss, as if it were from a memory that she'd never want to let go of.

_"Nice tatt," Grimmjow whispered into the ear of the woman nearly pressed against him, rubbing his fingers down the bare skin of her waist. He traced a few aimless circles before bringing his hand to rest on her hip._

_"Really?" Nel asked him, bemused question clouding her voice. No, it wasn't question. It wasn't nearly as curiosity filled as it would have to be for that. "I was never much for it."_

_"What?" he offered lightly. "Don't tell me this was some kind of drunken mistake." He nipped at the open flesh of her neck. This conversation was beginning to bore him._

_She was silent for a moment before answering back with a short, "Something like that." Her voice dropped to a lazier drawl. "Not the sort of thing I really care to remember about."_

_He smirked, quickly maneuvering her body under his. "Then let's say I make you forget?"_

Maybe that mistake wasn't so drunken after all. The repetitive banging that filled his ears was enough to break him out of his stupor and remind him that he did have a task on his hands.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" he shouted in the door's general direction, stuffing the square of velvet and wad of paper into the in with all the Tupperware before going to open it.

The four 'men' at his door were enough to jog his memory back to what was supposed to be happening that day. 2 cops and the irritating faces of Nel's brother were just what he needed to make his already sour mood spill over, but they had to be there. Because today was the day all final reports came in.

Once again, that doubting feeling spread through his body. After that incident with the package, he wasn't quiet so sure he wanted to know what the cops had found had happened with the body. It wasn't just his utter curiosity they were dealing with. It wasn't about his pride or the loss of his future. It was all about the loss of _Nel's_ future, _Nel's_ life. So he let them in.

Grimmjow took his perch against the counter as Pesche and Dondochakka nervously settled on the only couch, leaving the cops standing awkwardly in the space between. They happened to be the same two from last time.

The red haired one looked around uncomfortably and after noticing that no one else was going to talk, let out a graceless cough. "So we have been working on the investigation this past week, but unfortunately, due to some lags in the system, we could not obtain a personal copy of the autopsy. For the meanwhile, we have the original here. This just means we have to bring it back with us," he said, stammering through the whole speech before handing the documents to the nearby Pesche and Dondochakka after getting the okay from Kuchiki.

Grimmjow watched the reactions of the two men as they read through the files, noting the slight shakes that convulsed through both of their bodies. They flipped through the papers, pensive frustration clouding both of their faces, and gave the documents back to the officer when they were done, who swiftly handed them to Grimmjow.

He grasped the papers in his hands, taking in an easily concealed breath, before looking down at them. He skimmed through the legalities, tucking them away in the back of his mind, only stopping at the first bit of information on Nel's death.

Type of Death: Violent

Findings: Multiple lacerations to the forearms; injury to the back of head; large cut extending from hairline to bottom of forehead

Cause of Death: Blood loss and acute hypothermia

Manner of Death: Homicide

External Examination: Severe wound to back of skull; skin sliced from the beginning of hairline all the way down to the slope of nose; split lip; small scar on the left side of neck; large 3 tattooed onto middle of back; gunshot scar on left thigh; birthmark across bridge of nose

Gross Examination: N/A

Microscopic Examination: N/A  
Grimmjow read through it once, and then twice more to be sure that his eyes weren't fooling him before looking up at the cops, sheer frustration racing through his veins. "This isn't right," he deadpanned.

Officer Kuchiki raised an eyebrow at his words. "Of course it's right. You are in fact holding the original documentation, the _only_ documentation, in your hands."

Grimmjow shook his head. It was impossible; it was right. _No_. He was right. It…it couldn't be. "Then it's not her."

Kuchiki let out a short breath of air. "Of course it's her, Mr. Jaggerjaques. Upon arrival, hair and nail samples were taken from the body and the DNA of both matched up with that of their owner, Ms. Neliel Tu Oderschvank."

"No," he let out again, his voice firmer. He knew Nel. He knew every inch of her. Even make-up wouldn't be able to hide what he knew and based in this description of the body, this definitely wasn't her. "It's not her. She doesn't have a scar anywhere on her neck and Nel's never been shot in the thigh. You have the wrong person."

The black haired man scoffed. "Are you aware of the measures our people take in order to identify a body, Mr. Jaggerjaques? The possibility that we have mistaken one body for another is slim to none. After previous events, you should be more open to the idea that things were happening in Ms. Oderschvank's life that you were not aware of."

His grip tightened dangerously on the papers before he threw them onto the ground in a fit of rage. "You think I don't know that?" he shouted, his hands slamming into the countertop. "You don't know the hell of it!"

He closed his eyes slowly, and then opened them after counting to ten in his head. His gaze stretched over every person in the room, starting with the brother's whose expressions were torn between shocked and fearful, then to Abarai's tight lipped grim face before settling on the ever so pensive state of Kuchiki. These people were…they were of no help to him. They were of no help to _her_. And then the officer had to ask the question.

"Mr. Jaggerjaques, is there something about our victim that you are not telling us about?"

Grimmjow's fingers tensed into fists as the image of the package ran through his mind. He waited it out for a few moments before meeting Kuchiki's cold stare with one of his own. "No there isn't. Is there anything _you_ aren't telling _us_?"

He saw the flash of anger go through the man's face, but it was so slight that he was sure no one else even had the opportunity to witness it. Kuchiki seemed as if he were about to answer back when his phone rang, effectively cutting him off. He immediately answered, stepping into the corner as if to let them all know that the conversation wasn't meant for their ears.

Grimmjow watched Kuchiki become immersed in his phone conversation, the man's eyebrows slightly furrowing from what he could assume was being said on the other end. Grimmjow heard a bit of shuffling, felt a hand on his shoulder, and his vision was momentarily blocked by a flash of red. He looked up to see Abarai. The red haired man took a quick glance over to his partner before speaking.

"Look," he said. "Don't tell anyone that I told you this, but there is something off with this case. I just have a feeling is all, but I believe that this is out of the police's hands. It's bigger than us." The man took a nervous glance over his shoulder before turning back to meet his gaze again. "This could cost me my ass if anyone finds out what I'm doing, but here." He shoved a piece of paper into Grimmjow's hands. "There's the address to where her body was found. The witness who found it lives in the tea shop right next to it. I don't know how much help it'll be, but maybe you could hire a P.I. or something. Just don't tell any-"

A soft click resounded throughout the room as Officer Kuchiki hung up his phone, causing Abarai to noticeably tense up. He seemed to contemplate what to do next before making his way over to his partner. Grimmjow watched them exchange a few words, a heated glare slipping onto Abarai's face.

"They can't do that!" Grimmjow heard, quickly followed by another outburst of, "That doesn't make any sense!"

Kuchiki said something back, his face calm as ever before both men turned their attention to the remaining occupants of the room. Expression stoic, the black haired man made his way to the center of the room. "That call was from headquarters. This case has been closed."

"What the hell?" It was the first thing to come to Grimmjow's mind, the first thing out his mouth.

"It is just as I said, Mr. Jaggerjaques. This case is over."

The two brothers exchanged a confused look before Pesche spoke up. "So you found the guy?"

"To my understanding we did not. This case has been put on an immediate hold," said Kuchiki, his cold gaze penetrating through everyone in the room. "I cannot say that I particularly agree with these orders, but I know better than to question my superiors." He took a quick glance to the floor where the autopsy papers were scattered out. "We will need the autopsy back."

Grimmjow growled. "Get them your damn self. Its not like the girl who this information belongs to is of my concern anyways."

This wasn't right. Just as Abarai said, this was all off. Grimmjow didn't even consider bringing up the package now, since the police apparently couldn't help him. Especially not when they couldn't even help _her_.

He watched as Abarai silently picked up the sheets of paper, throwing him a glance, before quietly relieving him of the room after Kuchiki. Grimmjow waited till they were gone before turning his attention to the pair of brothers.

"What the hell's you two's problem? You don't have anything to say?" he asked, brows knit in semi-permanent frustration. He'd never sent the two of them this…this calm, this quiet, this lacking in energy. Normally they would be bouncing off the walls with their annoying antics, no matter what sort of situation they happened to be in. Maybe Nel was their only reason to keep face and with her gone…

"We don't know what to say. This is just as confusing to us, as it is to you," Pesche let out, after a short moment of contemplation.

Grimmjow ground his teeth. "Well you know what I think. I think she's not really gone." The words came out of nowhere, but somehow, as he said them, he believed them. The evidence of her death just wasn't adding up with him. Even members of the investigation were acknowledging that.

Maybe, just maybe, they were all wrong. What if it wasn't actually her? What if all of this was just an enormous hoax?  
Obviously, she had gotten herself into some deep shit down the road, but that didn't mean that this was her end. What if this was all just one huge misunderstanding, just one big mistake? What if?

"Grimmjow…" The voice was from Dondochakka this time, but Grimmjow wasn't willing to listen to all their doubts.

"Listen," he said, his voice straining in attempt to stay calm. "This shit makes no sense whatsoever. Now there might have been a bunch of crap about Nel that I never even bothered to try and learn about, but I know her. And that woman in that autopsy…it's not Nel. Why do you think the autopsy didn't have any labs and the investigation was mysteriously cancelled? It's not her! It's not fucking Nel!"

His fist slammed into the counter, his mind racing with his new conclusion. He didn't care what anyone else had to say about it, Nel wasn't gone. That thought alone was enough to soothe his grieving mind. Call it denial, call it his guilt eating away at him, but she could not, was not dead.

Grimmjow watched as the two brothers got off the couch, wishing him farewell before leaving the apartment. He didn't care what they did. He didn't care what they thought. He didn't care…he didn't care. No one else had to believe him. Because he was going to find her no matter what the hell she did.

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**AN: So one of the challenges with this chapter was the autopsy. Yeah, I could have just summed up what was written in it, but I figured the autopsy would give a better effect. The only challenge is that I'd never seen one up close and personal but "luckily" they have sites where you can "review the autopsies of your favorite celebs" which was immensely creepy. (Like who really does that as a hobby?). Also, some of you may have thought that Pesche and Dondochakka were way out of character, but I had them that way for a reason other than the fact that I find them hard to write. I won't give too much away, but lets just say the pair are really good actors and leave it at that. On a last note, next chapter does jump into more of Grimmjow taking action, but all the things covered in this chapter were needed for the story to make sense. I needed to have Grimmjow in that "grieving" period where he does still think Nel's dead because he can't just bust out with "NEL'S ALIVE". I just hope I did get the balance between 'the most important part of my life is gone' and 'I'm still Grimmjow' correct. So, yeah. Hope ya'll like the story so far.**


	5. Chapter 4

**AN: Yay! I'm fixed seeing as for some reason when I uploaded this dock the first time all my spell checks were reversed. It bothered me a lot and I know I hat reading things with 1,000 errors in them so I decided to fix them and repost the chapter. **

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**Chapter 4**

Standing in the middle of the alley where they had found Nel's body, it was painfully obvious to Grimmjow how any sort of crime could have committed. The space was narrow, making trapping people a breeze and unless you were willing to climb over a barbed wire fence, there was only one way in or out. The ground was still damp from the previously unrelentless rain and unusually bare. No boxes, no trash, no animals. The whole place seemed to be cleaned out.

Either the police had taken everything in as evidence or someone around here cleaned up good. Despite the lack of evidence left for him to go by, he decided to try and get a feel for what had happened anyways. Whatever he did here, it'd have to be quick; the idea that he was in the same place that Nel had, in some form or another, became a victim of harm unnerved him.

He walked from the opening of the alley to where it stopped at the fence, continuously looking up the walls for windows. There were none, not like they would have helped her. The shadows created by the two buildings were enough to have cast the alley in pitch blackness during the night. The only way anyone would have _seen_ what had happened was if they had an up close and personal view. From the street, even at the opening, or even if there was a window, you would have had to have been there to see what went down.

For a moment he wondered if anyone had heard, but then quickly dismissed that idea. Despite how shitty a lot of the buildings in this street might look, he figured they all must have thick walls. And even if someone had heard there's a high chance that they just turned a blind eye and kept going, not wanting to be next.

Giving the wall a hard kick, Grimmjow cursed before sliding down its opposite. What if that was what happened? Someone attacked her, pulled her inside this alley, and no paid her cries for help any mind. No. He knew Nel better than that. She wouldn't put up with that kind of shit nor would she allow any attacker the sounds of her pain. From experience, he learned that she may not look it, but she most definitely could hold her own. Hell, he knew, although he'd never vocally admit it, if Nel wanted she could beat his ass into the ground. So what the hell had happened to that then?

He sighed, kicking the wall across from him once again, the gap so small, he didn't even have to scoot forward. This scene held no clues for him. There was literally nothing around for him to work with. All the blood had been washed away with the rain and all the possible evidence had been swiped out. He growled. He should have expected it. He should have known. He should have…

This was no good. The only source left was to go see that witness, which he couldn't exactly say he was excited to be chatting with. Talking about finding his girlfriend's 'dead' body was not really what seemed like a pleasant experience. Turning around, Grimmjow made his way out of the alley over to the entrance of the shop.

The shop wasn't really as quaint looking as he had expected it to be. Just like all the other buildings in this street it was a little bit shoddy looking, but far from run down. The building itself was only two stories, the smell of aged herbs and spices wafting out of the windows.

He inhaled the scent deeply before pushing open the shop's doors and walking in. Bells jingled in his ears, alerting everyone of his presence, as a rush of warm air flooded over him.

He was greeted by the sight of many wooden shelves filled with various herbs, spices, and teas leaves. They hung everywhere in the store, basking it in a mix of strong scents that made his head ache. A young woman, 19 at best, sat over in the corner behind an aged counter, flipping absentmindedly through a magazine. Looking up at him with question on her face, she blushed, before greeting him quickly and running off behind the beaded curtains in the back.

Standing around awkwardly in the store, he realized that with his lack of knowledge of what this place actually was, he was at a major disadvantage. All he knew was that he was in a store that sold row after row of tea products, but in this area you could never know one's true intentions. If he were to even find the shop's owner, he didn't have the slightest clue what to say.

Listening to the part of his mind that screamed at him to act natural, he made his way down the make shift aisles, gazing at all the products with feigned interest. He stood there for at least five minutes, examining a few of the leaves, letting the hushed voices in the back wash over his ears before the beads rattled once again.

"The owner requests that you join her in the back," came a voice from behind him.

Grimmjow tensed, before vaguely recognizing the voice of the girl who was at the counter when he first came in. For a moment he contemplated what she had said before ht words sunk in. He wouldn't have to look, for the witness for the witness was looking for him. Shaking off all the doubts in his mind, he allowed the girl to guide him to the back.

Behind the beaded curtains, lay what Grimmjow could only assume to be a restaurant of sorts. The air smelled thickly with tea and was clouded with thin smoke. Tables high and low litter the wooded floor giving off the effect of walking into the pasts of both the East and the West. All the walls wee aged, green paint peeling off, leaving a dirty off white in their wake. Strips of fabric that looked imported from India itself were cascading across the ceiling, giving off the effect of a gold and blue jungle canopy. Nel would have loved this place.

"Sit," came a cracking voice from the entire ay across the room.

He looked around, eyes narrowed, to find its owner. Over in the corner at a low table sat an old woman smoking away at a cigarette. Her eyes were nearly closed, pale skin dotted with liver spots and white hair pulled back into a loose bun. She looked so old while giving off the air of the utmost authority. Something about it made Grimmjow uneasy.

The girl who had led him into the room had once again disappeared, leaving him alone in the room to deal with the old woman. Not one to be put off so easily, he made his way to the tale at which the old woman sat, gazing at her with suspicion before sitting down on the other side.

She took a deep drag, blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth before opening her eyes to look at him. Her gaze sent waves of apprehension crashing down his spine, making him feel as if she were peering deep into his soul. He knew that stare. He'd felt that gaze crash down on him time and time again. The one that no could read but its owner could use it to look directly into you. He'd seen it before. He'd seen it in Nel.

"Grimmjow Jaggerjaques," the woman let out slowly, her accent thick and unfamiliar as her eyes slid closed. "I was beginning to think that you'd never come."

He resisted the urge to show how put off he was by that statement. She had been expecting to see him here for whatever reason, it brought on a feeling that he didn't like.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, considering it a safe enough question.

The woman took another drag before stubbing out the cigarette completely and answering his question. "The woman, Neliel, she talked excessively every time she came here. Mainly she talked about you. 'Grimmjow this' and 'Grimmjow that.' Gave me more than enough of a description to go off of."

If Nel was still around he probably would have smirked at that comment. "What did she say?" he asked.

The woman rotated her shoulders, sighing in relief when they cracked. Leaning back into the wall, she once again opened her eyes and looked up at him.

_"Thank you for letting me stay here," the young green haired woman spoke softly, her words aimed at the aged woman across from her. She pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, peering down into her steaming cup of tea. "I won't be too long though. I miss my home."_

_The woman across from her snorted. "You mean you miss that boy?"_

_"Not that boy. That _man_," Nel answered. She sighed softly looking off into space, eyes clouded with deep thought. "To anyone else, it would be somewhat difficult to understand why I even choose to stay with him._

_"He's brash, arrogant, and selfish. He's a sadist. The man cares more for his car than for the well being of others. He's too opinionated and barely has a filter on his mouth. In fact, he's the harshest person I've ever met and the strongest contradiction."_

_Her elderly counterpart took the time Nel was speaking to light up a cigarette, relaxing into her perch. She closed her eyes; one brow raised and let out a stream of smoke before saying, "Then tell me why you do choose to stay."_

_The green haired woman sighed, stirring her tea with her index finger before raising the cup to her lips. She gazed up at the old woman, the tea not yet reaching her mouth. "Because he's the best thing that's ever happened to me."_

Grimmjow scoffed. "That shit sounds just like her."

From the way the elderly woman spoke about Nel, she'd probably been around here on more than one occasion. That could be reason enough to explain why she was down in this part of the city. But why, of all locations, was a tea shop placed here?

"Why here?" he asked the woman. "Why the hell would you build a tea shop in this district?"

The look on the woman's face was of bitter insult. "You've got yourself confused boy. This ain't that district. My store was here first then all of _those_ people decided it good to open up business here. Well I'm old and I ain't got the time nor the will to move somewhere else."

He left it at that, taking a drink of his tea, contemplating how exactly to phrase his next question. "So…that day," he tried, "she was coming here, right?" He was pretty sure the answer to his question was a negative. He was so sure of this fact, yet all he wanted was for the woman to say yes so that all of his suspicions could be cleared away. But the look on the woman's face spoke for her.

"Well then do you know what she was coming down this way for?" he asked.

The woman sipped slowly on her drink, before answering with, "Not specifically. If you don't know what business she had, then its best that whatever it is, she tells you. She would have wanted that."

"Bullshit," he drawled back lowly. "How would you even k now what she wants, lady? You don't know anything." His grip on the cup tightened, his mind reeling. What the hell had Nel been doing?

As if sensing the question on his mind, the woman's face softened. "We can't understand the reason behind why people do what they do. All I know is whatever she did, she was trying not to have to bring you in with her for the better. I can't say that I do know exactly what's going on, but it's probably not something that she's proud of."

Grimmjow's gaze heated as he glared into his cup if tea. He didn't fell much like thinking. Hell, he didn't feel much like doing anything, but his mind refused to shut off. He had always known there were things about Nel that she hadn't told him, but this…he didn't know how she had kept this to himself for so long. There was a lot about her that he had yet to learn, and for her sake, he better be a quick learner.

"You know," said the old woman, breaking the silence, eyes closed with a look of nostalgia across her face. "She wasn't dead when I found her body."

This caught his interest. The idea that Nel wasn't dead at the crime scene only reaffirmed his idea that she was still alive. But still… he had to be sure. "What do you mean?" he asked.

The woman opened her eyes, their unreadable gaze, piecing into him. "I mean what I said, boy. Imagine my shock, going into the alley to put out some trash and finding her lying there on the ground. She was in a puddle of blood flowing from her head, but head wounds bleed a lot regardless of how serious they really are. She was drenched and cold from the rain, but when I touched her, she was very much alive. Pulse wasn't strong, but that didn't mean it was weak either. And she was awake, awake and talking."

Once again, the cup tightened in his hands, but he was too immersed in the woman's words to set it down to keep it from breaking. "What'd she say? What the _hell _did she say?"

_Glazed over hazel eyes peered into the dark sky, cascaded in shadows that lay like a blanket over both women. That gaze, it wasn't the one held by those stepping into the threshold of death, but of those who were tired of peering into its eyes, yet clung desperately to the world that kept it from stepping into its hands. 'This woman,' concluded the tea shop owner, 'has yet to take her last breath of life.'_

_She watched the young woman peer into the darkness above her, before shutting her eyes tight, as if trying to make the moment disappear. 3 minutes and no changes later, they were open again. Lips parted, the young woman let out a short croak, voice and words lost. And then they came back to her._

_"3." It was the first word out the young woman's mouth. "This number refuses to evade me. 3 days. 3 minutes. 3 hours. I live on the third floor of my building on Third Street._

_"I want to take it back…just take it all back. The creation of the number three has done nothing for me and yet I'm its favorite holder. I tell anyone who listens that it's the worst creation and you know what he tells me? He says it lucky. He says if the 3 is gone, then he'll be a sad, sad man. Well you know what I think? Screw his feelings. Life is more than these fucked up numbers that suffocate me. What is my life without 3? A life. That's what it is. A beautiful, beautiful life."_

_They sat there, the old woman holding the green haired woman's hand while trying to keep her wound from making contact with the ground. Off in the distance an ambulance rang out its tragic song as it creeped closer and closer to this destination._

_"You called an ambulance?" the green haired woman asked._

_"Yes," her elderly counterpart nodded._

_"Then I apologize, seeing that the act is a waste. My life has come to an end and I readily accept that." She was quiet for a moment before asking, "What hospital am I going to be taken to?"_

_"The closest one."_

_"Figures," she sighed. Then she seemed more urgent in mood. "There's a piece of paper in my jacket that I need you to remove before anyone shows up. Hide it in the safety deposit box hidden in the bricks of your walls and forget its there."_

_The woman didn't waste any time asking how she knew about the box, jumping to the more important question. "What's on the sheet?"_

_"Don't tell anyone we had this conversation. Don't say anything and no one else has to die." Her pupils dilated._

_"Nel, what's on the sheet?" the old woman asked again her tone more threatening. There was no answer as the young woman's eyes began darting around wildly. "Nel?"_

_The ambulance's sirens rang loud in the old woman's ears as the green haired girl's eyes slid shut. She convulsed on the ground once, then twice more, before stilling. She wasn't answering anytime soon. With shaking hands, the old woman reached into the jacket pocketing the folded piece of paper she found inside just as the ambulance pulled up. There was yelling as a gurney rolled up into the alley taking the young woman's body away._


	6. Chapter 5

**AN: Sorry about all the mistakes last chapter. I don't know what happened but I'll fix it...eventually. So this chapter's kind of short and the last one with the old lady. What I wanted to say last chapter was that the girl working in the tea shop was more important than the old woman herself. See if you can guess who the girl is because she'll be important later on in the story. Hope you like this chapter better than the last.

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**Chapter 5**

The old woman before him finished her story, standing up abruptly and disappearing behind another set of curtains that Grimmjow assumed must have housed the kitchen and the staircase to the upper floor. He groaned, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes the second the woman was gone.

'This is bullshit,' he thought to himself.

He could come up with over 100 ideas why that was so. And yet he chose to spend his time in more productive light, focusing on that one number. 3. He wasn't exactly sure what this number symbolized for her, but whatever it was, it had to be what started all this crap.

And that 3 on her back. The tattoo must be some sort of tag, some sort of claim. He knew in some types of, per say, organizations members got markings to display themselves as 'in'. Was it possible that she, Nel, his Nel, had partaken in that? The thought appalled him and repulsed him at the same time. As far as he was concerned, Nel _couldn't_ do something like that. She was too…too…moral. Yet he just couldn't believe how the thought had never crossed his mind, despite the fact that he truly wished it to not be the truth.

Only one way to find out. He'd have to find the guy who made it. The way he figured is that if this really was a group thing, then they'd have the same person do all the tattoos. Knowing Nel, the guy was most likely a certified professional. Knowing the guys on the street, whoever did the ink work didn't forget the experience. All Grimmjow would have to do was fond the artist.

The shuffle of footsteps broke Grimmjow out of his thoughts as the old woman slowly reentered the room, an intricately carved wooden box held in both hands. She took her seat, placing the box gently on the table as if it were made of a fragile glass.

He himself was vaguely aware of the contents of the box. He knew that it was hell' a important and that Nel hadn't wanted anyone's eyes on it for that reason. Especially the eyes of law enforcement. So why would she have this woman keep it hidden, instead of exterminating it completely?

He watched the aged woman go through the painstakingly slow process of opening up the box. When it did finally click open, he let out a breath that he didn't even realize he was holding. She pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it and pressing out some of the wrinkles before handing the sheet over to him.

'My dearest Neliel,

I send my condolences to you on behalf of the deaths of your past co-workers. Events as tragic as such could have been avoided if those who were aware would have just spoken up. It is amazing to me how in these situations the one who could have prevented it choose not to act on the power they hold.

On a lighter note, I do hope that you are taking my previous offer into consideration. Without your presence, our funding has not been as strong as it once was. We are lacking in something that fueled our company. We are lacking our third. The decision lies completely in your hands.

Sincerely,

Aizen

_"This morning at approximately 7:34 A.M. the site of this building was the homage to a surprise bombing. 12 workers were killed and 42 were injured from the sheer power of the explosion._

_"The building under attack was the newly built Fujikawa Corporations headquarters. If the name sounds familiar it is because they are the up and coming music technology company making waves all over the world. Not only are their products extremely popular, but they are under suspicion of knowingly hiring criminals, which makes them a target from illegal companies around the world._

_"Police speculate that the bombing was not from a rival business and was most likely targeted at one of the workers in the building. If so, the Fujikawa Corps could be taken to court for-"_

_The TV turned off, erasing the image of the foreign news reporter from the screen. Grimmjow stared at the television set blankly, attempting to make sense of what had just happened. He looked over to the couch's other occupant, snarling at the sight of the remote in her hands._

_"What the hell woman?" he snapped. "I was watching that!"_

_She didn't answer him, staring at the TV aimlessly, brows furrowed, bottom lip held between teeth. He nudged her shoulder, receiving no reaction in return. Whatever the hell had happened to that building had to have had some sort of personal business with her._

_Stretching his arm out to reach across her shoulders, he pulled her into him, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder. "Well, what the hell is it?" he asked her. He didn't have to clarify his question. She would already know._

_It was a moment before she spoke, her voice quiet and hoarse. "I used to work there."_

_If anyone else had said those words to him, those words that implied the 'that could have been me' speech, he probably would have rolled his eyes and slapped the mess out of them for being so overdramatic. Being that the words had come out of Nel's mouth, his reaction was admittedly different. He knew he wasn't much for comforting others, but for her, he'd at least try._

_Placing his free hand atop her head, he turned it to face him. "You may have worked there at some point in time, but you don't anymore, alright? Shit happens regardless of whether or not your there so do both of us a favor and don't waste our time walking around like it's the end of the world. I'm here, you're here, and that's all there is to it."_

_She clenched her eyes shut, nodding at his words before resting her face against his chest. She didn't cry or shake. All she did was rest there against him. He half considered telling her to go use something else as her mattress, but looking down at that slightly masked frustration on her face, he decided it best to let her be, relaxing back into the couch, arm tightening around her body._

That explosion, that day. She knew…she knew it was going to happen. And this guy, Aizen, he knew that it was going to happen too. Gazing down at that letter he realized what it truly was. Just a sugarcoated piece of blackmail.

From the looks of the letter's condition, it wasn't anything that she had obtained recently. It was probably some months old, which would go along with the bombing that happened 5 months ago.

What Grimmjow had collected from all he'd learned so far was that Nel seemed to have some kind of connection with this man, Aizen. He figured this guy must have been the cause of all the crazy shit in her life that had ultimately led up to her 'death.' She must have tried to break off connection and was told that if she didn't come back something bad would happen. Maybe she ignored it. Maybe she tried to fix it without having to go back. Whatever the hell she did, it wasn't enough to convince him to call off the explosion. And then when it was all over, he put the pressure on her all over again.

Whoever this Aizen guy was, he was sick. It was one thing for him to be pressuring her into doing something that she didn't want to do anymore. It was another thing for him to be dragging the lives of other people into it. He had forced her to choose between the freedom of her life and the safety of other's.

_'Don't say anything and no one else has to die.'_

He understood why she did it. He could understand why she felt she had no other choice but to leave. Based on the first letter he had found, she had probably given into Aizen's wishes about 3 months ago. Then something must have happened to have her fake her own death.

Clutching the paper tighter in his fist, he slammed his free hand down into the table. He should've known. He could've helped her. But what hit him the hardest was the fact that this had been going on for so long and he hadn't even noticed.

He was a douche bag. He was an asshole. He was every insult that Nel had ever called him and more. He saw the demise of Neliel Tu Oderschvank happen right before his eyes and didn't even bat an eyelash.

All this time…ever since he'd known her, she must have been trapped in this personal hell with the demons of her past. He didn't know how to make it up to her for being so oblivious all this time, but now he knew what he could do. Everything she'd done…everything she'd gone through…it won't have been for nothing. He'd find her. He'd save her. And the ones who had brought her into this hell…they'd suffer.

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**AN: Well. there it was. Sorry if it feels a little slow, but the action starts to pick up next chapter (not saying this one doesn't hold important stuff, cause it does). So thanks if you're still reading this story because despite the Nel Grimm label, they actually don't meet up till about mid way towards the end of the story so I have to show their romance scenes through flashbacks which also help explain the characters' backgrounds.**


	7. Chapter 6

**AN: Just finished this today and I had to post it. I actually wrote this whole thing listening to both artists Aaliyah (R.I.P.) and Ciara and the chapter has nothing to do with any of their songs. So this chapter gives a little background on Nel and Grimm's past together starting with their first meeting. Hope you likes.

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Chapter 6

_Face drawn up into a deep scowl, Grimmjow scanned over rows and rows of art supplies wondering how the hell he'd gotten himself into this mess in the first place. Oh yeah, he remembered now. He had promised that he'd have a piece together for that exhibit and figured he would come up with something before the time came around. How wrong he was._

_He lacked motivation. He lacked inspiration. Nothing in this world seemed to be calling out to him. His whole being was stuck in a state of indifference and in that mindset, he could not work._

_Closing his eyes, he ran his fingers over the brushes, remembering why he was even in the store in the first place. All his brushes had been broken, or rather; he had broken all his brushes in a fit of rage when none of his work seemed to be coming together._

_Just as his fingers had closed around the brushes he had planned to buy, his focus was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps and harsh breathing. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see a green haired young woman race into the store as if her life depended on it. She swarmed through the aisles slowly drawing closer to his form._

_When she reached the opening of the aisle he was in, she skidded over to a stop, nearly bending in half from her deep breaths and body shuddering coughs. Green hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered her face, whilst her form was shrouded in a black pea coat._

_Looking around slowly, Grimmjow wondered if anyone else had noticed what the hell had just happened, but nobody seemed to be around. He let out a low curse, turning to the woman before him, the aching that had started in his head beginning to grow by the second. That woman better not be about to keel over. There was no way in hell he was giving mouth to mouth to some stranger._

_"The hell's your problem?" he asked the woman, as her shudders eased and she began to stand up. It was then that he realized that she wasn't coughing, but rather laughing extremely hard._

_Drawing into her full height, the woman pushed back her hair, laughter steadily subsiding. Her face was flushed, a pink strip running across the bridge of her nose, hazel eyes peering straight into him._

_Her gaze unnerved him, his jaw setting into a locked clench, displaying his disdain. This woman hadn't even said one word to him and she was already working his nerves. Deciding it best to just ignore her and get the hell out of there, he tossed his brushes into his basket, preparing to make his way to the check out when she finally spoke up._

_"You're an artist," she said, her words more of a statement of fact than a curiosity filled question. "You paint."_

_He rotated his shoulders, silently daring her to say some bullshit about his choice of career. "What of it?" he asked, voice gruff, eyes narrowed._

_"Nothing of it," she said back, her voice a little too upbeat for his liking. "Well not exactly nothing because art is a really big something. You know, unless your art sucks, but I guess that doesn't matter as long as you're able to get your point across. You know? Because I think it's amazing when people can say so much with so little. So what do you do? Abstract? Realistic? Black and White? Impressionism? You look like you do the harsh stuff? I bet it still looks pretty though, right? What do you paint? Do you paint animals? I like animals. Do you paint landscapes? I like landscapes. Do you paint people? I like –"_

_"Shut the hell up!" He cut the woman off, his voice reeling with agitation._

_That woman…she talked too fast, too much, and about absolutely nothing. Her voice was too high, her thoughts too scattered. His mind just couldn't take it._

_"Listen," he said, trying to keep his cool. "Woman-"_

_"Neliel," she deadpanned._

_"What?"_

_"Neliel. That's my name."_

_He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Listen, _Neliel_. I'm not in the mood for chit chat right now, alright? I just want to buy my brushes and get the hell out of here, ok? I have a killer headache and you aren't helping it. So why don't you do what you came to do and I'll do what I came to do, alright?"_

_"OK."_

_That was it. Just a cheery 'ok' from her and he left the store free. Then he got home where it was just him and his canvas all over again. But this time it was different. Images flew through his mind, pouring life into the canvas in front of him. And when he was done, he stepped back to examine his work._

_Green and pink. Fuck. He'd done it now, he'd let her in. It was beautiful. It was ugly. It was annoying as hell. It did _her _no justice. So he'd let himself believe it. He'd put the painting up into the exhibit. Because there was no way that painting was inspired by Neliel Tu._

Grimmjow groaned at the memory brought up by the piece of artwork in front of him. He'd never sold it. Not because no one wanted to buy it, but because he didn't know how to let it go. Didn't even know her at the time and he couldn't let her go. That was a fact that hadn't changed over time.

Despite all the fucked up shit that was wrong with her, there was something about Neliel that just called out to him. He'd never tell her, but he would do anything for that woman. And right now, anything meant taking her out of these shattered pieces of her past. He didn't care what she'd done and he didn't care what he'd have to do. Nel was someone, the only one, he refused to let go of without a fight.

Slowly removing himself from his chair, he walked out of the makeshift studio, taking one last glance at the painting. What had they done to bring them this far?

Pulling out his laptop, he logged in, immediately getting onto the internet. He planned to look up all the tattoo artist in the city, starting with the ones closest to the red light district. He must have been there for over an hour, ranking them by location and certifications, finishing with a list that stretched down to 30. Hopefully the artist he was looking for would be in the top 10.

He printed out his list, grabbing his coat, eager to get this search over with. 4 hours and 7 parlors later, he had nothing. He was tired, his head hurt from all these people trying to sell him shit, and his temper was on edge.

Cursing his luck, he made his way into the 8th place, heading to the front desk. Not even allowing the man to exchange pleasantries, he held up a hand, effectively cutting the man off, so he could jump straight to business.

"Not in the mood," he growled out. "I just want to speak with your manager."

"The boss man?" the guy asked, way too chill for Grimmjow's liking. "What for?"

"None of your business what for," Grimmjow leered. "Unless you wanna make yourself a problem?"

The man behind the counter raised up his hands. "Nah man. He's in the back, just go on through."

Nodding slightly, Grimmjow made his way to the back of the parlor, not stopping to look at the scenery. When he reached the door, he didn't knock, simply walking in as if he owned the place. The guy behind the desk, the manager he presumed, hopped out of his seat in surprise.

"What the hell man?" the manager shouted. "You can't just be walkin' in on people like that! You gotta knock first!"

"Tch," Grimmjow let out, shutting the door behind him. "Whatever." He looked at the manager, waiting for him to say something, and when he realized that wasn't going to happen, he sighed. "Aren't you going to ask me what I'm here for?"

Seemingly startled by the question, the manager let out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, yeah. So what brings you here?"

Grimmjow relaxed into the door, his body and mind on auto-pilot from having given this fake speech 7 times prior. "I'm curious about a tattoo that I plan to get," he let out slowly.

"Yeah?" asked the manger, disinterested. "You could probably take that up with an artist in the shop so you can get a better idea of who would be good for you."

"No," said Grimmjow. "This tattoo is special. Only you can do it."

"It's that serious, huh?" the man asked, his voice slathered in sarcasm.

"Yeah," he growled out, pushing off the door and making his way closer to the manager's desk. "Its hella serious." He reached into his pocket, unfolding the paper the paper inside it, throwing it face up onto the desk. "I want that number 3 tattooed right onto the center of my back."

Unlike all the other artists he'd tried this on, this one didn't just brush his gesture off as nothing and agree to do it. In fact, this man's eyes opened wide, flashing with recognition and something akin to fear. For face up on that sheet of paper lay a gothic 3. The same 3 emblazoned across Nel's back and into that piece of white velvet cloth.

"No," the manger whispered, his voice thick with fear. "N-no."

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed, sharply conflicting with the smirk that was beginning to spread across his face. He finally found his target.

"Well why the hell not?"

This comment seemed to snap the man out of his revere, seeing that his face immediately became somewhat composed. "That's a custom tattoo. I don't know where you came up with the sketch of that 3, but the owner requested we never do it at this shop again. If you really want that one, you're going to have to take it somewhere else, kiddo."

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," Grimmjow snorted. He leaned over the desk, grabbing the front of the other man's shirt in his fists, forcefully pulling the man out of his seat. "Who has it?"

The manager reached out a hand to take a swing at him, only to find a hand around his throat as a swift punch was landed in his gut. He squirmed around, making the grip on his neck tighten.

"Answer me," the blue haired man commanded.

"I-I don't remember. I-it was years ago," the man stammered out, sucking in a breath of air as the hand once again made contact with his stomach.

"Don't fuck with me," Grimmjow ground out. "Who the hell was it?"

"I don't remember her name."

"Then you better remember something. What the hell did _she _look like?"

The manager seemed to be contemplating his options for a moment before answering. "Green hair," he said. "She had green hair."

"What else?"

"A pink mark across her nose, baby voice, a-and an enormous rack and nice ass. What I'd give to be with that –"

He was cut off as Grimmjow's grip tightened around his neck, nearly cutting off his airways. Grimmjow brought the man closer, close enough to feel the fear racing through the other man's veins.

"I guess it's your lucky day," he rasped dryly. "That guy you wish you know, you know the one with the girl with the green hair? You're looking at him. And you remember the girl, right?" The manager nodded slowly, letting out a croak that Grimmjow assumed meant yes. "Well you better hold onto that image of her cause she's dead now, and I'm going to find who killed her. Now I'm only going to ask you this question once. What the fuck is the tattoo for?"

The manager was literally quivering in his arms, as he let out a thin, "I can't. If I tell you, they'll kill me. You understand, right?"

"Oh yeah. I understand," Grimmjow sneered. "I understand that if you don't tell me what I want to know, you're going to be arrested for the murder of that girl."

"Y-you can't do that," the manager stammered.

"Can't I? Why don't you test me and see what happens when your sorry ass is on death row. It's your choice."

"F-fine." Grimmjow grinned. He had won. He was victorious. And the man whispered one word, voice hoarse and quivering. "Espada."

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**AN: Ooooh. Suspense. Sorry if Nel seems a little OOC in the flashback but the reason for that was also hinted in the flashback when it was raining and Grimmjow had to go pick her up (remember?). Take notice to the major change in her attitude because if you can figure out what's up with that, then in the future a lot of the things she does will make more sense.**

**I was actually going to take this chappie further, but once I put down 'Espada' I was like, I better stop and leave it there till next time. Hope it kept you interested.**


	8. Chapter 7

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**AN: Can't really say I'm that proud of this chapter. Its short and mainly consists of background info, which is important but a bore to write. The only part of it that I do really like is the flashblack which, along with all the other flahbacks, becomes more understandable in chapter 9.

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Chapter 7

"What?" Grimmjow asked, keeping his slight amount of confusion out his voice.

"Espada," the manager rasped out weakly.

"What the hell is an Espada?"

"Not what, _who_. Who is the Espada? They're Souske Aizen's top ten."

Souske Aizen. Aizen. Aizen. He knew that name…he'd heard it before. The image of the letter flashed through his mind. Aizen…that was the man who had sent the letters to Nel. The one who'd been asking for her to come back. The one who had messed up her life. And the one who had taken her away from him.

_So did this mean…was Nel… an Espada?_

Grimmjow pulled the man even closer, glaring down into his eyes. "His top ten?" he barked. "Explain."

"I-I don't know much m-man-"

"Then tell me what you do know."

For a moment the manager was quiet, trying unsuccessfully to break his gaze off from Grimmjow's. When he realized he couldn't, he whimpered slightly before speaking. "All…all I know is that Aizen's collected a bunch of people to do his bidding for him and he chose the best ten to be his Espada. They're ranked from weakest to strongest starting at ten."

Grimmjow tumbled that thought around in his mind. "So she was the third most important, huh? It shows their rank?"

The manager nodded weakly, face beginning to turn blue from lack of oxygen. For a moment, Grimmjow dully considered just letting the man pass out, but in the end he let him go at the last moment from some sense of pity.

"Tch," he let out, dropping the man to the ground, listening to his deep breaths of air. "Pathetic."

Walking out of the room, he shut the door behind him, acting as if everything was normal. He had things to do, people to learn about. That person in question being the one, Souske Aizen.

The moment he got home, he was on the computer again, this time knowing exactly what he was searching for. Aizen. He got on Google, simply typing that one name into the search box and coming up with over 300 articles involving the man. He clicked on the first, opening to a man with brown hair, brown eyes, a charming smile, an expensive suit, and an overwhelming aura that commanded power.

The article was titled, "Hueco Mundo Expands across the Globe" and had the picture of the man he assumed to be Aizen cutting the ribbon of the newest Hueco Mundo Corporations building. Mainly it talked about how they were opening up new buildings in all the fast rising economic powers in the world like India and Russia. They went on to talk about how much profit the new sites would bring to the company, but never exactly what kind of services the company provides.

The second article was about how Hueco Mundo was wiping all these other companies off the map with various lawsuits. Apparently, all the companies were wronging Hueco Mundo in one way or another and got sued horribly. And still no mention of what exactly Hueco Mundo was bringing in their main money for.

He went back to the search page skipping from page 1 to 37 at which the articles became increasingly more interesting. Despite the nice clean front the company put up, it appears that they weren't as innocent as everyone believes. Every company has a scandal at some point or another, but they were under too many suspicions for it just to be a coincidence. The thing was, they were so influential in the business world that no one really had, nor were brave enough to take the risk of bringing the company to court for anything.

From what Grimmjow could tell, Hueco Mundo was under major suspicion of having some more underground criminal ways of bringing in their money to fund all their projects. The more radical articles claimed that Aizen was some kind of drug lord who was hiring hit men to take out anyone who got in his way, while all the others just stated that their was a connection between Aizen and criminal activity, but due to lack of evidence, it had all been settled outside of court.

Bottom line: Aizen was up to something serious and he had the connections to be sure that no one could take him down. To even try and mess with him was an incredibly rash and irresponsible idea. Well, no one ever said Grimmjow wasn't either of those.

After hi initial searches of both Souske Aizen and Hueco Mundo Corps., he tried what had really been bothering him since he'd had the term reach his ears. The one thing he believed he wouldn't be able to find anything about was the one that concerned him the most. So he clicked search after typing in one six letter word: Espada.

His general search came up with a bunch of crap. Nothing that was coming up had any sort of correlation with Aizen or anything even seemingly illegal. Everything was both innocent and irrelevant.

By the time he'd found an article that was of some use to him, his eyes were burning, mouth dry, and he was in desperate need of taking a leak. And yet he was too far gone to care. He'd found it; he'd found the overlap.

The article was about the first building Hueco Mundo had ever set up; a hospital type building that presumably had most of its floors located blow the main building.

The fact that Nel had been, and possibly is once more, an Espada, along with the idea that this was some sort of hospital, made him nearly positive that this is where she must have fled to after her fake death. He figures this place must have been something of an Espada headquarters, seeing how difficult it was to find any sort of information on it and that their were presumably underground floors. So now, all he'd have to do was find its address, which shouldn't be difficult with the help of Google Maps and Yellowbook.

_Green. It had become the end of him. It was the worst color. It was his favorite color. And he kept waling into it everywhere he went._

_He wanted to get away, he had to. And in the end, all he did was walk deeper into it. The trees in the park, the grass, and even the lamp posts were that atrocious color. They taunted him; they tortured him. And he couldn't get enough._

_So he sat there for over an hour, brooding, not even getting up to leave when it began to rain lightly. Not like it mattered anyways. He could withstand it. What he couldn't stand was how he kept running into _her.

_"If you stay out here with nothing to protect you from the rain, you'll surely catch a cold."_

_Speak of the devil. He'd know that voice; it's childishly soft and high pitched tone contrasting dangerously with her obscenely obvious womanesque figure. His only hope was that she hadn't seen that painting and if she had, that she wasn't able to tell what it was._

_He growled, under the false hope that if he simply ignored her, she'd go away. It didn't work. Instead of leaving as he had so wished she would, she took a seat next to him on the bench, shifting the umbrella in her hands so that it somewhat covered the both of them from the rain._

_She sat silently next to him, staring straight ahead, much unlike her persona in their first encounter where she could not understand the meaning of the words 'shut up'. He wasn't sure which was worse: her talking so much he couldn't think or her being so quiet that his mind was left to wander to places that he'd rather it not be._

_"Grimmjow Jaggerjaques," she said softly, her words nearly washed out by the rain. "That's your name, correct?"_

_Ignore. Ignore. _Ignore._ The new mantra of his life. Ignore. That's all he had to do._

_"I saw it," she spoke her voice, just as soft as moments before._

_He could feel her eyes boring into him, piercing through his entire being. Vaguely he wondered if by _it_ she meant the painting, which was an idea he immediately pushed out of his head._

_Ignore. Ignore. _Ignore.

_"That's how I found out who you were. Because I saw that painting in the exhibit."_

_"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."_

_There it went. He talked. He spoke. He couldn't ignore it. He couldn't ignore _her.

_There was a moment of silence, before she just had to break it. "Possibly so, but I find that very unlikely. I said your name was Grimmjow and you failed to deny that fact. I was already aware of the fact that you were a painter and soon after meeting you I saw a painting that bore an uncanny resemblance to me. A mass of green and a splash of pink. I liked it."_

_He let out an annoyed growl prepared to go anywhere that she wasn't, when she said something that stopped him. It wasn't anything that was specifically substantial and it was already blatantly obvious after her last set of comments…but for some reason, it stopped him._

_"Contraire to the unfortunance of our first encounter," she had said, "I am not stupid."_

_He snorted, not saying anything and this time she didn't break the new silence that they created. I t was peaceful, calm, serene. They must have sat there for hours, not saying anything to each other. The rain had came and gone and it wasn't until the sun had began to set that he felt her make a move to leave._

_She made to walk away before turning back to face him, a light air of amusement dashed across her face. "You do realize the main reason I knew about all this was because when I was at the exhibit, you were there too, refusing to sell the painting to anyone for any amount of cash. But if it makes you feel better, I understand your reasoning. The work was too magnificent for what any of them had planned for it. But next time, if you're going to use me as your inspiration, I'd prefer if you'd ask me beforehand."_

_He snorted once more, still refusing to acknowledge that she had anything to do with the painting. "You're crazy woman."_

_Her brows furrowed before her face settled into a more mischievous smirk. "Most likely so."_

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**AN: I feel like I'm writing a prequel and the sequel all in the same story at the same time, but I guess I need it because it keeps me interested and brings in some Gimmjow/Nel romance...kinda. More importantly though, I've just finished writing the part of the story where Grimmy and Nel finally meet up (which isn't happening for another...at least 5, maybe 8 or 9 chapters). I'm so proud of myself.**


	9. Chapter 8

**AN: So yeah because both this chapter and the one before are so short I was going to post them both up yesterday, but I didn't know how to get around the error until like 5 minutes ago when I posted Ch. 7. But on a lighter note, this chapter and the next are actually the first pieces of the story I had actually written so I'm so proud of myself. Sorry if it feels a little akward(sp?) because when I wrote them at the time I wasn't totally sure of what I wanted the story to be. I was considering having it be a vampire thing where Nel had the secret life as one and thats why she left, but vampires are kinda of played out so its super difficult to write a good quality story with them. So I hope you guys enjoy what was the start of all this madness.

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Chapter 8

The room was dark, musty smelling, and deathly in need of a new paint job. He already was aware that the point of the room was to turn people away, rather than to draw them in, but they did their job well. Screw the health department, with the amount of info this place had, no one would dare have a bone to pick with them.

Above him, a trail of flickering florescent lights traced a path to the reception desk. A woman sat behind the cluttered filled white counter scribbling away furiously at a sheet of paper. He approached the woman, head held high, shoulders back, and eager to make it known that he meant business.

"Excuse me," he said to the woman, glancing down at the sheet she was filling out and then back at her. Her anxious eyes narrowed, the expression taking years off her face.

"Yes?" she asked, obviously uninterested in anything that he may have to say. She pulled the paper closer to her, trying to shield it from his view. When his eyes went from her face to the papers she seemed to become even more agitated than she previously had been. "Can I help you?"

He cleared his throat. "Yes, I believe you can." He put his hands down on the desk, leaning into her personal space. He lowered his voice as not to attract any unwanted attention and to convey to her that the question he was about to ask was hush-hush. "I'm looking for a woman that I have reason to believe is here."

He paused, rotating fragments of how to phrase his question in his mind, about to continue, when the woman at the desk began to speak.

"Patient, visitor, and resident information is confidential. If this woman you are looking for is indeed here, than she most likely does not want to be found and we are in no way to compromise her wishes," the woman rattled off in articulate and practiced speech.

He in took a breath, trying to ease the building tension in his jaw. He didn't plan on giving away the fact that the woman he was looking for probably did want to be found; she just didn't know it yet. And even if she was hiding, the woman truly did enjoy visitors and would be more than delighted to see him, but the receptionist did not need to know that.

The tension in his jaw eased, suddenly allowing a crazed smirk; almost smile, to slip over his face revealing his animalisticly sharpened teeth. He leaned into the woman, close enough that she could feel his breath fanning onto her face. He leaned into her ear, whispering, "You never let me finish. The woman I'm looking for is very special. I'm looking for the cursed number three-," his voice dropped to the point of it being barely heard, causing the receptionist to shiver in fright before he even said the name- "Neliel Tu Odelschwanck."

He leaned back up into his full height, no longer grinning at the incredibly frightened woman, now giving her a full-on death glare. The woman shook under his heated gaze, obviously uncomfortable and at loss for words.

"I- w-we," the woman stammered, seemingly unable to finish even the simplest of statements. "I-I-I, I don't know of the number three." She cleared her throat before speaking again. "If she is as you make her out to be then she must be a check in customer. No one would have any signed data of her appearance."

The man growled, enraged by her response. He grabbed her by the front of her shirt, pulling her up to his eye level. "You don't have any paperwork information on her, huh?" he spat out at her, his voice a deep growl. "You seem like you've been here a long time. Perhaps you've seen her come in."  
"I-I-I don't know," squeaked the woman. "Tons of people come and go around here. She could have been anyone."

"Then I suppose I'll have to show you a picture," he snarled out. Without letting the woman go, he withdrew from his pocket of the lady of the hour and shoved it in her face. He grinned once again and let the woman go; being sure that he had returned the photo safely inside his pocket.

The stunned receptionist was quiet, repeatedly opening and closing her mouth. The man thought she was going to say something, but quickly became annoyed when no words escaped her.

"Well?" he snapped out. "You've obviously seen her, so stop screwing around and tell me what I need to know!"

"It's not that simple anymore," the woman whispered. "That woman may not even be alive anymore."

"May not be _alive_?" he questioned, his temper once again beginning to boil. "Tell me, what could you possibly mean by that?"

An itching in his mind told him that he already knew, but the thudding in his heart signaled his desperation to find that his hunch was off.

"Well, that woman, Neliel Tu, you said … I did happen to see her come in three or four days ago." The receptionist took a shaky breath to calm her nerves before continuing. "She came asking for a private room, gave the preferable location for it and everything, but something about her seemed off. Her eyes, they were constantly fluttering in and out of focus, and she kept a cloth to the back of her head. She demanded that we sent someone to her room with towels, rubbing alcohol, and bandages, and after that delivery was made she wished to be left alone.

"It wasn't until she was about to take her room key form me that I realized something was wrong. She began to cough, quite subtly at first, but then it became an awful hacking. And when she pulled her hand away from her mouth when the hacking subdued, there was blood on it and some dripping down her chin.

"She looked so shocked, like she had never bled before, but when I offered to get her a doctor; she refused, seeming to snap out of her state. She switched hands so that the now bloody hand was the one holding the cloth and picked the key up with her clean one. The woman, she was so odd, I couldn't help but watch her go get the elevator. While she was waiting, I noticed something. The cloth she was holding to the back of her head was blood stained; even more so than what could have came from her cough. But the elevator came and whisked her off before I could get a good look. The only thing I could guess was that she had some sort of injury to the back of her head that broke the skin."

The woman finished herd story taking in the frustrated look on the strange man's face. She gave a soft 'pity' in hope of offering him some type of condolence.

"I have to see her. I need the key to that room," he stated, the urgency of the situation slipping into his voice.

"I can't do that," the woman replied looking down at her desk. "Not only would it go against confidentiality policies, but it would betray Ms. Odelschwanck's wishes."

The man seemed to hesitate before speaking in a more pleading voice. "I have to see her. I'll even check on her while I'm there." He paused for a moment before his voice returned to its more familiar taunting voice. "Besides, I hear that having a death on the watch of the employees here in this type of business is more of an extreme crisis. Clients don't feel as safe as they normally would be fooled into believing they were."

Conflicting thoughts flashed through the eyes of the receptionist before she silently reached into the desk and pulled out a key. She placed it into the waiting hands of the man before her. He held it, tracing the contour of the object with his eyes, judging the truth behind the small item. Finally deciding that it was in fact real and not some sort of joke, he pocketed it and made his way to the elevator.

"Don't you want to know what room number it is?" the receptionist calmly asked, despite her obvious confusion on the situation.

"No," he stated gruffly. "I have a feeling of where she was."

"She's really important to you isn't she?" asked the receptionist just as the doors began to close.

The strange man chuckled. "Sure, something like that."

The elevator doors closed and he was off.

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**AN: I actually enjoyed the chapter after this much more, because at that point I had begun to pull more strings together and a lot of Nel's strange behavior becomes revealed. Don't really know if I want to post it now or not...eh...I'll just put it up tomorrow. So yeah, sttay tuned and if you're one of those people who like to try figure out the story before its over, then try to find out what's wrong with Nel because its like real obvious next chapter (which like so ruins the surprise).**


	10. Chapter 9

**AN: Between chapters 8 and 9, 9 is definitely my favorite, but there is a lot going on. So yes, some things become clearer (maybe) while most just gets more tangled up. Unlike when I wrote 8, at this point I kind of had more of an idea of what was going on and that it a would be a lot.

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**

Chapter 9

The elevator was drafty, its chilling temperature having no affect whatsoever on his body. The ride to the 3rd floor was to be a long one, de to the specific outlay of the building.

Above ground was a dingy building 5 stories high. He wasn't sure what that building was pretending to be at the moment, due to the fact that its occupation was constantly changing. All he knew was that whatever it was supposed to be, it was doing a pretty damn good job at it if it hadn't been shut down yet. This fact he knew because no one had yet to suspect the massive amount of space hidden beneath this building.

10 floors worth of secrets were stashed below the upper building. 1 being the furthest trip down, and 10 being the closest to the surface. He didn't know how this was done or why the man who created it felt the need to. The exterior motive was that people who didn't want to be found could hide, but why they felt the need to vanish from the public eye was a mystery to him. He wasn't even sure why Neliel was there. He only knew that she was.

He pulled the picture out of his pocket, taking a good look at it. He remembered the day he found it in her apartment. She had asked him to bring her some shoe box out of her closet and the photo just fell out. When she came back to find out what was taking him so long and found him looking at the picture, she freaked.

In the photo she had her nose wrinkled in mock disgust, eyes shining with laughter. Her mouth was wide open as if the camera had caught her in the middle of a conversation. Her cheeks blazed a rosy pink, nearly blending in with the pink mark that stretched across the bridge of her nose.

Apparently she was embarrassed by the picture, but wouldn't tell him what exactly was going on when the picture was taken. So as a way to get back at her for leaving him in the dark, he claimed the photo as his.

"Where the hell are ya' Nel?" he asked the image.

Frustrated that he was talking to a scrap of paper and that he was once again left in the dark, he stuffed the picture into his pocket, just as the elevator reached the 3rd floor. The steel doors slid opens with a slow 'whoosh', revealing to him the very hallway that Nel had traveled down just a few days ago.

Three doors lined the hallway; one on the left, one on the right, and one at the very end. Rooms 31, 32, and 3. Instinct told him to go to room 3 and he listened.

He walked to the end of the hallway, and one look at the door erased all doubt that she had been there. Blood, her blood, stained the white of the door and the bronze knob. It had dried since the time she had been there, but was there none the less.

The blood on the knob flaked under his hand, rubbing off onto his skin. Wiping it onto his pants, he walked in feeling a wrench in his gut. Without even one look at the room he froze. The scent that hit his nose was unbearably strong when he did. Pomegranate and lemon; his nose picked the familiar smell, her smell, apart on instinct. It swirled around him, basking him in her presence. But unlike her it was heavy hearted and overbearing, making his head pound.

Deciding to leave the door open to air out the room, he stepped further in. From the looks of it, the space looked more like a one bedroom apartment. A small stove, oven, and sink with about 2 feet worth of counter space made for a kitchen. Up against the back wall lay a bed between a dresser and a desk. The center of the room was housed by a glass coffee table with three dingy pillows around it. The whole place was cramped and messy. He had no ides how she could have stayed here.

His first destination was the kitchen. Dust was the first thing he noticed. It was on the counter, covering the window of the oven, and coating the inside of the cabinets. Second to be noticed was the lack of food. Nothing in the microscopic kitchen area seemed to have been used either. Rust coated the handled of the sink making them difficult to turn and when the water finally came on, it was a dingy orange. The oven was ancient, antique almost, and aside form the dust it held no sort of stains from wear and tear.

He found it strange that the kitchen had never been used; Nel loved hot food. She must not have eaten during the time that she was here. There was no possible way that food would be delivered to her room, and the thought of her going out to get some with her injury was infallible. He personally had never seen her go more than 4 hours conscious without a meal which left two options; either she had been sleeping during her entire stint here or she had been in and out fast. Or else there was a lot about Neliel Tu Odelschwanck that he was not aware of.

Given the idea that she had slept through her whole stay, he checked the bed. It was wrinkled, undone, and blood was staining the pillows. If possible, it seemed that instead of the scent of blood, _her _scent seemed to grow seemed to grow more unbearable the closer he came to the bed. He turned to the equally messy bed, crushing something under his foot on his first step.

Glass and rose pink seeped out from beneath his feet. He removed his foot from the ground, revealing the shattered remains of a perfume bottle. The scent, he realized, was from this bottle, this perfume. It overpowered him, made his stomach churn, his mind refusing the idea that a scent this overpowering could be her.

Wishing to leave the thoughts alone, he scowled down at the pieces of glass beneath his feet, kicking them out the way before turning to the dresser. He took in the contents on the dresser: a roll of bandage, metal pins, gauze stained with blood, a needle, thread, and a knife. He wondered what the hell she was doing with all this crap. The best idea that he could come up with was that she gave herself stitches. That didn't explain why she had a bloody knife, but that, he figured, could wait for later.

The desk was scattered with papers. Some were in manila folders, some were copies of documents, some were written by random people, and four of them were written by Nel.

Grimmjow didn't read any of them, just skimmed a few. They all seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with each other except for one thing. Highlighted on every single one of the papers was one name. Nnoitra J. He made haste of going through all the papers looking for something, anything, in all the desk drawers that would provide the extra information of which he so sought, and found nothing.

Defeated he growled, slamming the last drawer shut. Eyes darted around the room noting two doors that he had missed before.

The first one, Grimmjow found, was a bathroom. Stark, bleached white, but definitely not clean, the bathroom burned his eyes. He checked out the medicine cabinet behind the mirror only half shocked by what he saw. Prozac. Lithium. Nightquil. Pain killers. A bunch of other medications with names he couldn't pronounce, but could tell what they do.

Of course, Grimmjow was very much aware of all the shit Nel took to 'balance her mood', but there just seems like something was wrong with this. The box of pain killers was entirely empty, ripped open with haste. The bottle of Nightquil was entirely drained. All the other rolls of prescription pill bottles were empty too. Half the prescriptions in the cabinet weren't even made out to her. Grimmjow didn't have any idea what she was doing, but whatever it was, it was very stupid.

He scanned over the cabinets again, this time paying better attention to the organizational structure that he knew she had thought out carefully. The pills were supposed to bring organization to her life; she believed that, for this reason, they should be one of the few things in her life strongly structured.

The heavy stuff like Lithium and Prozac were on the top shelf, furthest away. The middle shelf was racked with anything that killed pain. If it numbs, dulls, or slows it, you better believe she had it right there. The shelf on the bottom held the everyday prescription free stuff. The Nightquil, cough drops, Pepto, Vicks, and throat sprays were all lined up along that shelf and organized by color. All was in its place, but one thing. One pill bottle, out of place, pushed to the edge of the shelf instead of against the back wall like its neighbors.

"_What are you doing?" Grimmjow shouted down the hall._

_Nel had been in there for half an hour with the door open. It was quiet in their apartment, save for the occasional maraca like sound stemming from the open bathroom door. At first he believed Nel to be in the mirror taking some obscenely long amount of time to 'freshen up' in the mirror, but as time passed he began to question the idea._

_When no answer came to him from the bathroom, Grimmjow growled, pissed at the idea that he'd have to check on her to be sure that she hadn't done anything stupid. He peered into the small room to find her sitting on the bathroom floor gazing off lazily into space, mumbling softly to herself. In front of her sat rows of medications in both bottles and boxes._

"_Nel?" he spoke softly, attempting to rouse her from her dazed stupor. "Nel?" She still did not answer._

_From his first glance he assumed that she must have once again became too consumed in her mind right before she was about to take her meds, but then he saw her move. One hand fell down to a pill bottle, picking it up with nimble fingers and placing it in a different row as she continued to mumble to herself._

_Grimmjow strained his ears to catch on to what she was saying, but only could make out a bunch of numbers. He forced himself to think, trying to decipher the words coming out his mouth, before looking down at those dastardly pill bottles once again. 'Math,' he thought, 'she's doing math.'_

_He sighed, deciding to leave her to her own devices in favor of finding him something to eat since she obviously couldn't do it for him at the moment. He was half way through his meal when she had made her way out of the bathroom to sit across from him._

"_Took you long enough," he growled out when he saw her._

_Her nose scrunched up in disgust. "You really should chew with your mouth closed," Nel chided. "Most people will find your lack of table manners atrocious."_

_Grimmjow snorted, letting her words fly right over his head. "What took you so long in there?" he asked. "I thought I was about to piss myself waiting for you to finish up."_

_Nel simply rolled her eyes. "I honestly doubt you had to go, and for your information, I was organizing."_

"_For an hour?"_

"_Yes. Try not to mess it up."_

"_Why? There are labels on everything to begin with."_

"_I don't know," Nel said, looking at him with a somewhat contemplative expression on her face. "My mind just feels like a jumbled mess so why not have the things that organize it be organized too? The place it goes says something about how I feel about it."_

_Grimmjow slurped loudly on his leftover pasta. "Let me guess, you put the Prozac on the top shelf, where its not eye level?"_

"_Out of sight out of mind?" she asked with a morbid grin on her face._

_Grimmjow groaned, placing a hand on her head and mussing up her hair. 'Let's not get all mushy and crap here, alright. I'm good, you're good, so do yourself a favor and don't dwell on what you can't help. Got it?"_

If it had been anyone else's cabinet, that detail wouldn't have been so important, but this was Nel. She didn't make mistakes like that. One item even the slightest bit out of place would drive her crazy. So only one conclusion in this situation would make sense: someone besides Nel was in this room before him. Whether they left with Nel or came after her departure was all he needed to know.

He picked up the misplaced pill bottle and gazed at the label. The name of the medication had been scratched out, but the name of the owner was still half legible. Tesla. He shook the bottle to check of this one was empty. Something inside of it rustled, and it was definitely not a pill.

The lid was difficult to remove, even with Grimmjow's tight grip, but it did open with a very audible pop. Inside, rolled up, was a single scrap of paper. He glared down at it with an unforgiving suspicion before he even read what it said. Somehow, somewhere inside him, he knew this scrap of paper would make way for information that he may or may not have wanted to know to be revealed. If he was the type of nerves, his hands would have been shaking as he unrolled that scrap of paper.

**We could spend our time playing hide and seek**

**But I always know where you hide**

**You can no longer escape me**

**And when I get you once again**

**We'll finish what you started**

He looked over his shoulder, half paranoid that the person who wrote this message knew where Nel was. And they were looking for her. He turned to glare down at the scrap, knowing that if the writer found Nel first, the outcome would not be pleasurable.

The paper crumpled up in his now clenched fists. He was frustrated by how much sense her disappearance _wasn't _making. First Nel was being blackmailed by the leader of the Espada so she fled here. Then she was being stalked, but apparently it's not the first time. Then she got a note from her stalker and broke some of the things in this room. Was the creep in here with her? Was she all alone or was she forced out? Was she even alive anymore?

Grimmjow didn't know. He really didn't know what was happening. The note and her disappearance made perfect since, but that didn't explain her Espada membership and why they were looking for her. The guy who wrote the note obviously had something personal against Nel so there was no way he was acting out on orders from the Espada. Was it possible that she was being hunted down by two different forces at the same time?

His nose wrinkled from all the thought that he had to put into this. He didn't like not knowing things that concerned him and if it concerned Nel's safety, then it concerned him, too. Stuffing the note into his pocket, he retreated to the bathroom to go check out that other door.

It was a closet. All the other door led to was a microscopic closet with only one coat in it. The coat was a trench style, old and ragged from over use with a brown stain standing out against the white fabric. At first glance he assumed it was just something spilled onto the fabric. Then he saw the bullet hole.

_Grimmjow gazed down wearily at the small disfigurement on Nel's skin. He had seen it countless times before, but she had never really allowed the opportunity for him to get a good look at it. Now was his chance._

_It was slightly raised in a full circle, right underneath her left rib, with a sharp concave in the middle. A scar from a deep laceration cut through the center, extending out on both sides. It looked painful, it looked ugly, and it looked a lot like it came from a bullet._

_Before he could realize what he was doing, his hand extended out, intending to feel the damaged skin beneath his fingers. The second they made contact with her cool skin, her body went rigid as she took in an abrupt gasp of air. Her hand wrapped around his accusingly._

"_What are you doing?" she asked him, her voice tense._

_He didn't answer, opting to ask the question plaguing his mind. "How'd it happen?"_

_Her hand gripped his even tighter, clenching onto it like a lifeline. "I got shot. How'd you think?"_

The hole was about the width of her thumb and lay in the exact center of the stain, which Grimmjow now assumed to be one of blood. From the location of the hole, the victim must have been shot in the upper left abdominals. Nel had a scar in that exact place. Without a doubt, he concluded that this was her coat. And it was the only thing she let stay in this closet.

Scanning the jacket with his eyes, he caught sight of the coat's designer, Uryuu Ishida. Ishida was Nel's favorite designer. The man wasn't famous or anything, but he did something with every piece he designed especially for Nel. This something always made Nel ecstatic, when it was actually nothing Ishida had ever made a big deal out of because it was simply a hidden pocket.

The idea was quite simple and unoriginal in itself, but the pocket was actually something worth being praised for. If you ever were to put the coat on, or even exam it extensively, you'd never even realize that it was there. Even with prior knowledge of its existence, you would still have trouble finding it if you didn't have the exact location. Because hidden in the sleeve was the pocket, which is virtually unnoticeable no matter how much you were to fill it with.

Grimmjow, of course, thought the idea was absolutely idiotic, but for the first time, he was beginning to catch some of that buzz. He slipped his hand into the sleeve, feeling around intently until his fingers finally slipped into the tiny pocket of fabric. And his fingers weren't the only occupier. For between his index and middle finger, he found another slip of paper, which he immediately pulled out and read the only two words written: Kurosaki Ichigo.

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**AN: A note? A gunshot wound? All those meds? Kurosaki Ichigo? Yeah, its a lot, but its all needed for the story and it all will make sense in the end. The only thing that really bothered me was the notee because I didn't want it to sound cheesey and the whole time I was writing it kept feeling like gouketsuwarai's The Games We Play (which I love) and I got like really frustrated. So I hope it doesn't sound too bad. But yeah lets talk about the highlights: 2 flashbacks, I'm using Ichigo in my story apparently, and Nel's on lithium (what could that mean?). Hope you guys liked it because I typed 3/4 of this AN with my burned hand (makes me feel like a dumbass cuz I freaked when I burned it).**


	11. Chapter 10

**AN: This chapter and the one after it are fairly short, but there's nothing i can do about that. Hey, when a chappie feels like its over, its over. I just gotta move on to the next one, you know. Only thing about this chapter is it feels kind of weak to me. I like the one next to come much better.**

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**Chapter 10**

Kurosaki Ichigo. Who the hell was that?

Grimmjow was pissed, in fact, pissed didn't even begin to describe the frustration that was locked up inside of him. One day he had a girlfriend, as normal as he could get, and the next day he was stuck sorting through all of her shit. Of course, he was very much aware of the fact that sorting all this crap out was he had to do, lest he never find peace again. He had worked way too hard to accumulate the relationship that they had, and he'd be damned if he just let all this work slip through his fingers like butter.

He had all this information on what she was up to, but none of it seemed to be fitting together smoothly. The papers on her desk; Nnoitra G.; the message in the pill bottle; that Kurosaki Ichigo message in her coat pocket. Not to mention the fact that she was now walking around with some injury to the back of her head, meaning that she actually was struck and had given herself stitches. Her life was fucked up, _way_ too fucked up.

Truthfully, he didn't blame her for it. Obviously she knew that she was in some kind of deep shit and didn't want him to waste his time with it. He didn't know whether or not she honestly believed that he would run for the hills at the first sign of danger, but there was no way in hell that was happening. Grimmjow Jaggerjaques was not a quitter and she should know by now that there's no way he's quitting on her.

With his newly found resolve, Grimmjow mentally steps out to find this Kurosaki guy, which honestly couldn't be that difficult. He simply had to look up some guy whose parents were dumb enough to name their kid after a fucking fruit. In the end, it took him about a total of 25 minutes to key in on the guy along with his address. Hell, he'd even managed to MapQuest directions. The internet is a powerful thing.

Of course, he wasn't just going to bust into the guys home and demand all the information he had about Nel. No, that was a sure way to get the cops called on his sorry ass and never even get the opportunity to find Nel. He figured he'd just walk in there pretending that he knew what was going on, and hope that this Kurosaki kid was dumbass enough to fall for it, which would still be difficult seeing how he had no idea what sort of connection this guy had with Nel. He could be anything to her. Hell, he may not even _know_ who she is. But at this point, he was ready to expend all his resources.

_"So, is this _all _you do with your life?" rang out the soft voice that was owned by the body that was currently wrapped up in _his_ robe, stretched across _his_ sofa, and flipping through _his_ sketches as if not to have a care in the world._

_Honestly, it had kind of creeped him out how she had just gone and thrust herself into his life making her presence something of the norm. If asked, he probably say that it was all her fault for showing up at his doorstep one day and expecting him to invite her inside. Then again, he could've just not let her come in and even then, it was completely his fault when he asked if he could paint her. Then again, _she _could've just said no. But then where would they be?_

_"No," he answered curtly, pulling a beer out the fridge, quickly allowing the liquid down his throat._

_"Usually when someone asks you a question as such you'd say no and then tell me what it is that you also do," she said back, voice lightly teasing. "But seeing as how you missed that, I'll bite. What else do you do?"_

_He took another drink, making his way over to the sofa, pushing her legs out the way so that he could sit down. He grabbed the remote, growling lowly and sending her a warning glare when she once again stretched out her legs, this time placing them across his lap. None the less, he didn't tell her to move them. Turning on the TV, he flicked through the various channels, never stopping on one long enough to know whether or not he'd even want to watch it._

_He heard her grumbling softly, kicking at him lightly with her legs. "Are you gonna answer or not?"_

_Slapping her shins, he considered pushing her off the couch or just kicking her out of his apartment all together, but thought against it. Irritated by her antics he simply stated, "You ask too many damn questions, woman. Buy yourself a fucking muzzle."_

_Once again, her foot pulled out to kick him, but this time he had anticipated it. Catching both her ankles in one hand, he glared down into her eyes, daring her to try and kick him again._

_"Let go." The words came out her mouth strong and firm, laced with threat but he paid her no mind. His mind, instead, was focused on that hard gaze that she currently held with him, her eyes flashing with little sparks of fire. And some how the words managed to slip out his mouth before his brain could relay the message to shut the hell up._

_"Cologne."_

_She seemed to freeze a moment, eyebrow raised, and he mentally kicked himself for even opening his mouth like the fool he was._

_"What?" she asked, smirk stretching over her lips._

_He clenched his jaw, his words coming out strained. "I sell cologne in my free time."_

_"Like selling Avon?"_

_"No. Not like selling Avon."_

_"Sounds like it to me," she sang._

_He growled, cursing under his breath as he let go of her ankles, allowing them to fall back into his lap. "Shut the _hell_ up Nel."_

_"I don't think you'll sell much of anything with that attitude," she chided._

_"Keep talking and I'll kick you outta my house."_

_"Well that's sad, because I was seriously considering buying some of this cologne too."_

_"Really?" he drawled, voice drowning in sarcasm._

_"Um, yeah. I have to get Pesche something for his birthday."_

_He didn't ask who the hell Pesche was, merely going back to his channel surfing. "Woman, you're insane."_

_A light hum slid out her mouth. "So I hear."_

"Grimmjow stood outside the apartment door, unsure of what to expect. Nervous wasn't the word to describe what he was feeling; it was leaning more on the side of anxiety. His life had become a raging whirlwind and he had no idea how to slow it down. But if speeding up meant that he'd get to Nel faster, then maybe it was better to be moving this fast.

He knocked on the door roughly, the sound half mimicking the thunderous booms made by the cops. Leaning back onto his heels, he didn't even think to plan out what he was going to say. He heard a thud, someone shouting 'answer the door fool!' which was quickly followed by a series of loud curses and even more banging.

After the series of dramatics the door swung open to reveal an orange haired young man, scowling away at his very presence. If looks could kill, he supposed he'd b e dead at the moment. He trailed his gaze up to the man's hair, smirking at that obnoxious color, highly amused. This had to be the guy.

"You Kurosaki Ichigo?" he asked, very much aware that the answer to the question was yes. The orangette's scowl seemed to become even darker with the question asked. His gaze trailed up to Grimmjow's hair before settling on his face, attitude completely repelling.

"Yeah. I am," he let out gruffly.

"Well you see, I heard from a little birdie tha-"

The orange haired man cut him off, looking down both ends of the hall before pulling him into the apartment and pushing his back up against the door. "Listen here," the man hissed. "You tell Aizen that whatever the hell he's selling, I'm nit buying so he might as well just stop asking. I don't want anything to do w-"

Slightly unbelieving that this fucker had just had the audacity to put his hands on him, Grimmjow pulled his fist back before punching the guy dead point in the jaw, effectively cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. He wasn't exactly sure what the man was even talking about except for the fact that it had something to do with Aizen, but this man was definitely crazy. And he'd had enough of crazy to fill a life time.

"What the hell's your problem?" Grimmjow shouted, prepared to go one on one with the man who seeming to be coming back for a second ass whooping. He was about to strike at the other man when a third part just so happened to walk into the room. Her and Kurosaki got into a mini shouting match before the third occupant finally turned to look at him, something akin to recognization flooding her face.

She was abnormally short with black hair and blue eyes, maybe 19 years old. She pointed up at him, mouth in a silent 'oh.' "You're that guy!" she whispered before turning to Kurosaki and slapping him on the arm, her tone harsh as she spoke to him. "I told you he was coming and not to do anything stupid! I said he had blue hair. _Blue! Hair!_ You won't be able to mistake him for someone else! Do you listen to _anything _I say?"

Her question was answered with a curt 'no', at which point a very confused Grimmjow decided to cut her off.

"What the _fuck _is going on here?"

This seemed to snap the two of them out of their crazy little rampage. Kurosaki just glared at him while his black haired friend at least had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed, a blush staining her face. As if a bolt slipped into place, the light bulb clicked on in Grimmjow's head, reminding him of where he had seen this girl before. She worked at that shop with that old woman, down by where the cops said they had found Nel. So without thinking he allowed his next words to come out his mouth, paying no mind to the looks that it caused Kurosaki to give to the two of them.

"Hey," Grimmjow had said, half dazed in his realization, pointing at the dark haired woman. "You're that Red Light District girl."

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**AN: Just thought I'd give this chapter a lighter air to it (but don't expect it to stay that way). I love writing flashbacks for them. It kind of hints at where the two of them stand and why they react certain ways to certain things that may not be that obivous. Anyways...I'm super happy though, because I've already posted up the first chapter of my next GrimmNel story. Yeah. But no worries, I'm fully commited to this story too. Cuz I'd be mighty pissed if I invested this much time, work. effort, and thought to this story and mapped it all out in my head, then one day up and decided that it just wasn't working for me. Besides, in my head this story has a sequel, regardless of if people choose to read it or not. **


	12. Chapter 11

**AN: So this would have been up sooner but I lost the flash drive I had saved the story onto and am now regretting not also saving it to my computer. Luckily I didn't type ahead and I write everything out on paper first and type it up as I go. If I didn't I'd be mighty pissed (more so than I am now). But alas, the story must go on, so here is the next chapter.**

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**Chapter 11**

"So you two both know Aizen?" Grimmjow asked the strange couple across from him.

After calming down from all the previous commotion, they had relocated into the kitchen in hopes of having more serious conversation. This better suited him on the hopes that both of these people could be of benefit to him. Kurosaki, because of the fact that he was something that Aizen wanted, and Kuchiki because she already knew more about the case then most.

The orange haired man groaned, rubbing his temples and Kuchiki seemed to be come more alert. "Yeah, I know him," Kurosaki answered. "But Rukia's the one who has had the opportunity to meet with him directly on more than one occasion. The man's fuckin' crazy with his little obsession for with abnormal features, that's why I assumed that you were working for him."

"Because my hair's blue?"

"Yeah."

Well that explained part of why Aizen was so interested in Nel, among other things. From all the time he'd spent around her, he'd picked up on some of her more helpful skill i.e. she's way too good of an actress.

"So that's how he chooses his people?" Of course Grimmjow was already aware that the answer to his question was a no, but he wanted to coax these people into telling him exactly how much they really did know about Aizen.

"No," piped up Kuchiki. "He, shall we say, _collects_ people based on how much of benefit they can be for him. It just so happens that most of these people have much more eccentric than average characteristics. If they can bring in some sort of gain for him, then he wants them. And if he wants something, he'll stop at almost nothing to get it."

Grimmjow snorted. "Ain't that the truth."

"You know?" This time it was Kurosaki speaking.

"Personally, I believe you know more about it than I do," Grimmjow drawled out lowly, leaning onto the back legs of his chair. He rolled his next words around in his mind before allowing them to slip out of his mouth. "He ruined my girlfriend."

"Ex," chimed in Kuchiki once more, with her side commentary.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"If he already had his eyes set on her, then as far as he's concerned, she was never yours for the taking."

Hand pressed down on the table, Grimmjow sprung up, ready to pounce on the small woman in front of him. "I dare you to say that again. Fuckin' try it." The anger rolled through his veins faster than he could comprehend it. A hand on his shoulder pushed him back down into his seat, but his only focus was trying to murder the woman in front of him with his eyes.

"That's not how she meant it," Kurosaki said softly, as if he were speaking to a child. "Just calm the fuck down, alright. It's just maybe she was just-"

"No," he let out gruffly. He knew what they were insinuating, trying to make him believe that his whole relationship with Nel was fake. That all she was there for was to check him out, see if he was worth any of Aizen's time and how to prey him into his clutches if he was.

"_Hell no_," he repeated, resolve firm. "She wouldn't…she couldn't…it was real. I know it. I fucking know it was."

Kuchiki looked up at him, understanding for the wrong cause in her eyes. "I understand if-"

"No! Shut the fuck up, cause you obviously don't get it enough to be talking! She was trying to get away from him. I know it. And he…he…" Teeth ground together so tightly he couldn't even get the words to come out his mouth. Frustration boiled within him like lava in the volcano that he was, threatening to erupt and destroy everything in its path. Too bad she'd gone and made him dormant. So he ground out the only words that he could, the only words that even felt half acceptable. "I'll kill him. I'll fucking _kill _him."

That sat there in tense silence after that, the quiet practically stifling him. He was never good with these sorts of things. He was chaos, that's all he was made of. All he needed was a cause, his push in the right direction and all hell would break loose. Never had he ever had to plan everything so carefully and then go ask someone else for help like this. He was entering enemy territory and was 100% vulnerable. This woman would be the death of him, and yet, he couldn't find himself caring enough to give a damn about that fact.

"Who was she?" asked Kurosaki, rough voice shattering the silence, but doing nothing to help with the tense atmosphere.

Who was she? That question made him think. She was Nel. No. She was way more than just a name and a pretty face. She was the sexiest, most irritating, imperfection that he had ever met. She made him do things he'd never think of doing. She made him soft, she made him angry, she turned him into a monster. Who was she? Everything.

Rather than just answering the question with a name, he reached into his pocket and laid her photo on the table before them, her eyes smiling right up at the trio. He liked her too much, loved her too much. Way too much.

"You know her?" Grimmjow asked, gazing wearily at the befuddled faces on both the people in front of him.

The boy didn't answer right away, still looking down at the picture with his eyebrows furrowed before answering with a soft, "Yeah. I guess I'd want to murder Aizen too."

Kuchiki's gaze was traveling back and forth between the two of them, obviously missing out on a key part of the exchange. "That's Nel," she stated dumbly.

Yeah. It was.

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**AN: Ah, the power of past tense verbs. I feel like i missed out on some potential Grimmjow and Ichigo drama here, but hey. what can I do. I wanted to put some in, but I couldn't find away to incorperate it correctly in the scene. But don't go thinking their going to be all BFF with each other because Grimmjow doesn't really like him all that much. Its more of a state of convenience thing. But I do think that Grimm and Ichi would be good friends if not for the whole Aizen drama thing. Until next time, enjoy.**


	13. Chapter 12

**AN: 2 Chapters in one day. Yeah.**

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**Chapter 12**

"So you both know her?" Grimmjow asked, staring them both down while at the same time pushing all his inner emotion away.

"Yes," Kuchiki answered. "I've only met her a few times though. Ichigo's the one who's had the opportunity to really know her."

"She works for Aizen, doesn't she?" The question on his mind sounded stupid the moment it came out of his mouth.

Kurosaki looked up at him, inquisition clouding his eyes. He didn't like being the receiver of it. "Yeah," the boy answered slowly. Almost ever since she came here."

Knowing her, she probably joined of free will. She doesn't usually do that kind of stupid shit without some sort of justification. Whatever this "justification" was, it better be damn good.

He grit his teeth together, unsure of how to pose the question that resided in his mind. It was too much. He wasn't used to having to ask when he had become so accustomed to just taking. So he said it, the words coming out of his mouth awkward in his attempt to make it sound less demand like.

"What do you know about it?"

He didn't have to clarify what the sentence meant. All three of them already knew. What do you know about her? About him?

The orangette's held a look of uncertainty, as if asking him if he really wanted to know what he had to say. Not because it would be extremely disturbing, which chances are, it very well would be, but because of the fact that this man may turn out to know more about her than he did.

Grunting lightly, Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Just hurry up and fucking tell me Kurosaki. As far as I'm concerned I know her better than she already had wanted me to. All this extra crap is just a bunch of background info."

Brown eyes flashed with something he didn't quite understand; gone so quickly he almost made to believe that it was a trick of the light. And finally, like a godsend, Kurosaki began to talk. "From what I know, she moved here from Russia about four or five years ago with her two brothers. Lived normally for about a month, that's when I first met her, then she disappeared for three. She came back and she was working for Aizen."

"That it?"

Something was missing. In all his time of knowing her, he knew it was common of here to just up and disappear without telling anyone, but for three months. That was way too long. She went somewhere. And when she came back she was working for Aizen? Something must have happened in those three months. Those three months must have been what created that initial justification of her actions.

"Of that part, that's all I know," Kurosaki sighed. "If she doesn't want you to know something, she's good at keeping it locked up tight. I doubt even her brothers have a strong sense of what had happened in that period of time. _They _know where she was, or at least they have some vague concept of it. Refused to tell me what they knew about it though. Regardless of that fact, I know she began working for _him_."

"You know what he had her doing?"

Thinking back, Grimmjow could believe that he's got a vague idea if that bathroom cabinet of hers were anything to go by. Yeah, she took a lot of shit but that was way too much, even for her.

"Not exactly sure. I do know she did some recruiting for him. That's how we met again. She was the first person Aizen sent out to try and convince me to join. Didn't work, of course, but that's how I began to find out so much about her. Aizen had told her to get closer to me or something like that. She's a really good actress. She told me that's why she thinks Aizen likes her so much."

Good actress? He knew that personally. She'd have to have been to keep a secret this big away from him for so long. Grimmjow supposed that was why any conniving bastard would like her. She was usable, but then again, she wasn't easy. Her trust was hard to earn. So how had Aizen managed to gain it?

"You," Grimmjow said, his attention leaving Kurosaki and being redirected towards Kuchiki. "What do you know about Aizen?"

The girl looked put on the spot for a moment. Body rigid, her gaze locked with his as if she had been ripped out of some deep thoughts that she must have been in all through Kurosaki's story. And she let out one word, nice and cool, contrasting greatly with her expression.

"Sure."

He must have stayed at that Kurosaki kid's place for hours. He had gotten there after eating lunch and hadn't left until nightfall. Not that they spent the time in friendly conversation. When they weren't talking about the whole Aizen and Nel thing, they just sat around in tense silence. Despite his helpfulness, Grimmjow had no plans of even making Kurosaki think that there was a possibility that they'd be all 'buddy buddy' together. For one, he was still holding a grudge from when the little fucker attacked him. For two, he knew too much about Nel. Not that he was jealous or anything, but he had the feeling that him and Kuchiki knew more than they had told him. And it was probably hella' important.

Grimmjow remembered the conversation the two had had before he left, Kuchiki already out of the scene.

_"You really love her, don't you?" Kurosaki asked him, his gaze burning right into his. It was as if Kurosaki were staring right into every secret that he didn't want anyone to know. He didn't like it. Or at least, he didn't like it from him._

_Jaw rigid and tense, he pulled his arm out of Kurosaki's grip, gaze deteriorating. "Something like that." It was his honest to goodness answer. Love wasn't for him, or at least, he didn't like to use the word as much when she wasn't around._

_The orange haired young man stayed silent for a moment, and for some strange reason, Grimmjow didn't take that opportunity to leave. He wanted too. Damn how he wanted to just press the abort button and get the fuck out of here because he knew whatever it was Kurosaki was about to tell him, it wasn't anything that he necessarily should want to hear._

_Kurosaki lifted his gaze, his eyes soft, and began to speak. "I'm not going to lie to you and say that she never liked working for him and only did it because she felt it was her only choice. Honestly, I don't know why the hell she ever thought that would be a good idea, but her reasons are her own. Everything she'd done, is doing, and will do in the future is because she feels that it's the best thing she can do. Something like this, I know it's not just something she's doing for kicks and giggles. So if you love her, do her a favor and set her free. Because Aizen doesn't like to lose the things that he believes are rightfully his and if you don't kill him, trust me, he'll kill her in one way or another."_

_Eyes narrowed, Grimmjow let out a noise. A snort, a cough, a sigh. It could have been anything. He didn't want to hear this. It was way too emotion, more so than he was used to being able to deal with and he didn't know how to deal with it. So he did the only thing he knew how in these moments. He raged._

_"You think I don't fucking know that? What the hell do ya' think I've been doing all this time? All this, even my being in this room right now, is for _her_! I let her in! I let her ruin me! And if you're dumbass enough to believe that I'm not going to get to her in time, then I'm wasting my time here!"_

_He would have hit him, but he wasn't that angry. In fact he wasn't angry at all. So why the hell was he yelling while Kurosaki just stood there and took it? Just stood there and looked at him, eyes full of understanding._

_Neither of them said anything. So Grimmjow just walked out the door._

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**AN: I wanted this to go on longer, but the chapter just felt over for me. Oh well. And Rukia's story about Aizen was cut out for a guys will see that scene, only later. Don't really have anything else worth saying, though I probably should be getting to work with my other stories, but what can I say. In the words of The Black Eyed Peas "I'm addicted and I just can't get enough". (I so have to download that song)**


	14. Chapter 13

**AN: This chapter is actually unique to the story because it contains events as told by Nel, which are in bold. I actually wasn't planning on doing this, but hey, genious is as genious does (i really don't know how i'm supposed to correctly use that phrase but it makes me feel smart to say it). Hope you all enjoy.**

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**Chapter 13**

He felt cold. He felt angry. He felt everything and nothing. Lonely? No. Yes. In some aspects of the word. Broken? Fuck no. like he was missing something important? Well, a lot of things happened to be absent from him these days. Life was playing mind games with him; constantly allowing him to believe that he was getting somewhere just to fuck him over five minutes later.

Help? He didn't want it. And yet, it somehow happened to be his only chance of getting Nel back. But how far could help go before it ruined everything? Aizen had to have known that he was looking for Nel by now, so why hadn't the man done anything to stop him yet? Was it because he didn't see him as a threat? Because he thought he wouldn't get even close to getting Nel back? Because he had yet to find the power or the connections needed to even get close to his goal? So how much 'help' would it take before Aizen struck?

The man was ruthless; that much hadn't taken a lot to figure out. If he wanted something, he'd take and eliminate everything else in his path. He had bombed the building where Nel once worked and made plenty of death threats to others that she was associated with. He hunted her down, cornered her. Relentless was he in his pursuit of her, probably not letting up for even a second. So why hadn't Aizen struck when he knew that he was planning to take back something that Aizen had went to such great lengths to re-obtain? And if the man did make a move, ho0w far would he take it?

All those thoughts swarmed around inside Grimmjow's head, clogging his mind up to killer extents. He couldn't think like this. In fact, he didn't want to think at all. Yet for some reason, his mind refused to stop. He _had_ to figure this out; he _had_ to find the next piece in this fucked up game of a puzzle.

Things were missing. He'd yet to expend all his resources. There had to be another clue, something he'd heard or saw and never looked into. It _was_ there. He knew it was. All he needed to do was think back. All he had to do was remember.

He walked over to the kitchen table that had recently become his workspace for keeping all the shit from Nel's 'puzzle'. He shuffled through its contents aimlessly. Fabric with the number three sewn into it. The old note from Aizen. The more recent note from the same man. He checked them all off in his head as he went along, freezing when he got to the bottom of the pile. Manila folders and the note from the pill bottle. The missing pieces: Nnoitra G. and the second force hunting her down.

He could vaguely remember taking these items out of Nel's hiding place when he had left the Espada headquarters. The manila folder he'd taken because there were things in there that she'd written and marked on, meaning that they possibly held all sorts of dropped clues. The note, well he'd just been planning on looking into who had written it and completely forgot about it. His missing pieces, they'd been in front of him the whole time.

Picking up the manila folders, he pulled up a chair, sitting down in an attempt to get comfortable. He flipped all the other crap out his way before flipping through the pages inside. Quickly he identified the four pieces written by her, separating them form the rest.

He looked over them slowly, not reading a word, just admiring her work. Letters curled effortlessly neat across the page, never touching the margin. Each space seemed to be of an equal width, each letter equidistant form the others. Highlighted across every word, was the same name, Nnoitra, the color a modest yellow. At the top of each new entry was a date, no year, and a time, each page numbered with enormous gaps of pages missing in between.

Finally, pulling himself away from the pages of handicraft, he decided to actually read what she had put down, starting with the lowest numbered page, 15.

**Pg. 15 March 3, 7:15 P.M.**

**Tea with Aizen at 12:30. He invited me on another trip to a gallery. I'm not sure why. All I know is that I was the last person to find out about it. I could tell by how much he was smiling. Truth be told, Aizen scares me. Truth be told, his presence invites me.**

**That Nnoitra guy still has some odd dislike towards me. Note to self: don't let him see you vulnerable. He could just be hostile by nature, but he seems to have some special place out for me. He stares at me, I can feel it. I think he knows I can. He has Tesla watching me around the building. I pretend I don't know. Because they can't know, especially Nnoitra. If he found out, it would all be over. These walls have eyes. But just how oblivious are they?**

**Pg. 37 May 18, 1:49 A.M.**

**Aizen makes me unsure of where my life is going. He's dangerous, that I know, but I believe my presence somehow amuses him. Everyone else is just a toy, we all now that, but I'm more than that. I'm supposedly special, limited edition, deluxe even. And that's a fact he makes clear to me everyday. If I left, who knows what would happen. If, I could leave, I'd bring Nnoitra with me.**

**This uncertainty does crazy things. I can't trust anybody, not even my brothers. The only one who knows is Nnoitra, and I'd do anything to keep it that way. Because he's like me, only worse. I scare him, and I don't know what would happen to me if he suddenly got over that fear.**

**Pg. 56 August 16, 8:19 P.M.**

**I am officially 100% positive that Nnoitra Gilga is on the hunt to find out something that I wouldn't want him to know. I leave the building early morning and head downtown. I board the train, ride peacefully for a while until I feel those eyes boring right into me. One quick glance and I see him, looming over all the other passengers, that sadistic grin spread widely over his face.**

**At first I assume it's just a coincidence but we happen to 'run into' each other way too many times for it to have been an accident. He's not just watching me, he's observing, ****planning****. I know he's going to do something, I just don't know when. So I spend the whole day waiting, prepared for anything to happen and nothing does.**

**My whole objective of this little outing was to pick up my new prescription refill. Personal refills were just that, personal. I take extreme measures when I go out to make sure that I'm not seen by anyone unfavorable. Yet, with the way Nnoitra had planned to follow me, they weren't worth crap.**

**By 3 I had ran out of things to pretend I had to do and decided that it was time for me to stop putting on a show and tell him to find someone else to stalk or suffer the consequences. So I asked him why he had chosen to follow me and all he had to say was, I quote, "You're interesting as hell". Apparently, Aizen had nothing to do with it. He was acting alone and out of his own personal interests. I don't know exactly why, but never do I ever tell him to leave. I knew it'd make him want to stay, but there was something else to. Instead I focused all my efforts into trying to shake him. This all goes to say, my prescription was never filled.**

**One useful thing did come out of today. I know that good or bad, Nnoitra's got something planned for me. I don't know what this plan is or when it's going to be put into effect, but I do know that whatever it is, it's going to be dangerous. And if I let him get too close, no one will be able to help me.**

**Pg. 71 December 21, 3:25 A.M.**

**You know those days when you know something bad is going to happen? Today is one of those days. For a while everything was just all fine and dandy and then I wake up today and I know, I just know, that today is it. Today is the day my whole world will come crashing down. Because I know what he has planned. I shouldn't know but I do. And frankly, I don't mind as much as I should.**

**I don't know what time he's planning to strike, but when he does, I'll be awake and waiting. Strange as such, I don't want to miss a minute of this or of any of this time between. Memory is a fickle thing, and all those bad things, all the things that everyone else wishes they could get rid of; those are the things I want to keep. I want to, no, I ****need ****to remember them. That way, when it all comes down to it, I can let them all go.**

**Those bad things are the accumulation of the past 5 and a half years. They are my discovery, my greed, my happiness, and in the end, my demise. Some days, I just block that space of time out of my head and just float around pretending that it all never happened. Today is not one of those days. Today is one of those days when all the bad things are on rapid cycle, spinning around in my head and I like them there. They fuel me, this transition from A to B, from cloud 9 to the mess that I am now.**

**Some days, if my life would be different, what things would be like if one factor had been taken out of the equation. If Nnoitra had never became an Espada. If Aizen had never hired Nnoitra had never been hired. If Aizen had never hired me. If he had never found me in the first place. If there'd never been a reason for him to. If I had never had to move here. If I never had to meet that man on the street. If I had never had to move to Russia. If I'd never had Pesche and Dondochakka. If I had never lost those two mystery people called my parents. If I'd been born on a different day. If I hadn't been born at all.**

**Chaos. Complete and utter chaos has become the order of my life. Nothing soothes me. Insatiable. I welcome the small things. My simple minded brain. It's a strange thing, really. These thoughts flow through my mind, swarming around me like a blanket of needles. Because I know things. Things that I was trusted with. That's why Aizen picked me. So that he'd have someone to hold all these secrets. Someone who wouldn't ever tell. Someone who'd take them to the grave.**

**These secrets are a strange thing too, each of them extremely vague. He told me enough to know, but never enough to have any sort of power over him. Strange as it is, his secrets mean nothing to me. They give me understanding, but not overly so. All his demons have now become mine. All his secrets are tattooed across my being. I'm still just his toy, but I'm the special one. I'm the one that's way too valuable to lose. Those 3 months were all it took. Those 3 months were all he needed to know that he could 'trust' me.**

**Secret #1: Aizen has a daughter. Her mother has full custody. He has no interest in changing that. Is anything that he does in his child's best interest? Possibly. Not definitely.**

**Secret #2: Coyote Starrk has a daughter too. She's the only reason why he works for Aizen. Because Aizen holds her safety over his head. Starrk is Aizen's number one and he has no plans of looking for a replacement. But that means that Starrk has a reason to hate him. And that reason could morph into an action. And that action could possibly ruin Aizen if planned correctly. Then again, Starrk is normally a person who goes with the flow. But the safety of anyone's child could change that.**

**Secret #3: Aizen has police connections. That connection is Kaname Tosen. Not a lot of people in the police force work with Aizen, but enough work with Tosen for Aizen to have an expansive amount of control. Untouchable, virtually so. If anyone even tried to speak of this, they'd be shot down. If they somehow managed to get around that, by some stroke of fate they'd be shut up and imprisoned. Their word over Tosen's. Even with evidence, the chances are extremely low.**

**Secret #4:**

**There are more secrets. Many more. But I'm not sure if they're safe to be written down. Problem is, in my head, these secrets kill me. They stifle me, muffle me, killing me softly. No one knows. No one's allowed to. A secret of mine: I gave Nnoitra a reason to want to end me.**

**I overheard something that I shouldn't have. Something no one, especially not Aizen, was supposed to know. I'm the closest to Aizen out of all the Espada. He trusts me; he expects things out of me that he'd never even challenge to the others. But I know something that concerns him. Because whether I tell or not, someone's going to have to die. All I get is to choose who.**

**In the Espada, there are rules that we never break. These rules were created to protect the safety of the whole organization. If even one is broken, everything could easily fall apart. Does Aizen have a back up plan? Of course. But even those can only go so far. Nnoitra broke a rule and the punishment for that is death. My secret, the one that I don't even trust to the confines of these pages, is no longer leverage enough for him. I'm too much of a risk.**

**Secret #5: Nnoitra killed someone important. Not only that, but he cashed out on it behind Aizen's back. Then he broke the rule. He started taking t**

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**AN: No, part of the story did not get cut off. Everything in bold is exactly as Nel had written it. So what happens next in her 'journal'. Well i'll tell you one thing, Grimmjow doesn't know because that's as far as she ever got. So the reason it may seem that Nnoitra wasn't mentioned a lot in the journal, was because the collection was to help Nel remember important moments. From this she could think back to the moments but since you only have this, the story is only half told, and it is up to you readers to come up with your own reasons why everything she said here was momentous in her life. I just feel bad those, because i feel like in a lot of GrimmNel stories Nnoitra's always the bad guy. I mean i gave him a reason for that (besides the fact that he's batshit crazy) but i actually think that, if written correctly, Grimmjow and Nnoitra could make good friends. P.S. Nel's not Russian (I mean her name kinda sounds like it but not really. she could be, but i doubt it. So why is that her homeland? well, only the reader who knows how i feel about my country ranking knows). P.P.S. There will be a sequel to this story, so if you want to know what happened in those 3 months with Nel that was mentioned last chapter, i guess you'll have to follow this story to its end then check out the sequel when i, you know, actually finish this story.**


	15. Chapter 14

**AN: OMG! I fucking deserve cash for even uploading today. I mean intially I felt guilty for neglecting this story to work on my new one, Klon-9 but after what I had to do to upload, I find myself not feeling as bad about, seeing as how much manual work was involoved. I don't know if the porblem has been fixed or not by the time some of you read this but when I tried to upload it took way long to load then said that there was a time issue with loading. So yeah, if anyone else has experienced a similar prob, just PM me and I'll try to tell you how to get around it. On the bright side, I've reloaded my error ridden ch. 4 (same long process seeing as the original expired). It was bothering me tons, even though my all so wonderful readers never went off on me about it, so thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the new over due chapter.**

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**Chapter 14**

The paper ended there, the sentence unfinished. The secret was left untold, but obviously not by her choice. No ending, just blood splattered across the paper. He doubted that it was an accident almost as much as he doubted that the blood belonged to who ended her entry. Someone had came in and stopped her before she could finish getting the secret down. Question is, if it was such a big secret, then why didn't they steal the notebook and destroy it?

His best guess of what she had been about to write down was that this Nnoitra guy was doing something that would result in his execution. Nel found out and, seeing as how 'tight' she was with Aizen, left him constantly under the threat of being exposed. At some point, he must have managed to find out a secret that she had (one of the many), and was able to blackmail her into silence with it. Over time he must have found reason to be paranoid and decided to just shut her up completely.

Easy scenario to follow, really, but there was still some questions to it that had been left unanswered. For one, why did Aizen choose her to be the one that holds all this information? What was he threatening her with to make her stay with him? What were those secrets she had that were apparently to dangerous to ever escape the confines of her mind? Had she been willing to die just so that no one would find out about what he told her? And lastly, what the hell made her so easy going on Nnoitra's plan if she knew it involved him trying to kill her?

All these thread remained unraveled, causing a mess within his head. He threw all the papers down, relaying a sharp "fuck!" before picking them up only to throw them down once more. He was confused. He didn't know enough about the situation, nor did he know the right people to help him gain any kind of upper hand. Or maybe he did.

Two faces popped into his mind, those faces being the ones belonging to the two cops who had visited him after Nel's initial disappearance. He focused less on the red head and more on the one with the uppity mannerisms, Officer Kuchiki. Grimmjow happened to know another Kuchiki, one with a brother who had some sort of connection with Aizen. If this Kuchiki did so happen to be her brother, then he possibly had access to more information than he previously believed he had. In fact, he could find out the backgrounds of all these people as long as he played his cards right. Now did he have any idea where Kuchiki lived? None in the slightest. But he did have the address to the apartment of her certain orange haired friend, Kurosaki.

Yawning in thought, he tipped back in his chair. He figured that he'd show the strange duo the files that he'd found tomorrow, try to coax any information they had been keeping in out, and then try to convince Kuchiki to get a background check on the owners of the names he had found so far. Nice plan indeed, or so he liked to think. But now, was the time for sleep.

_ 'I did something really bad.' Those were the last four words that she had said to him before he stormed out her hospital room. Angry? Not just that, hurt too. He goes 3 days with no contact from her and when he finds out why the hell she had been MIA, it comes from her brothers telling him that she hadn't wanted him to know, but she's in the hospital. So here he is deciding to play nice and kind boyfriend and visit her at the hospital, walking in on her and her brothers in some argument that he could only half understand, listening to the non Russian half about all the crap that she refuses to tell him. The fact that she could tell him those words, but didn't trust him enough to tell him anything else, made him livid._

_As far as he knew, she hadn't killed anyone. No cops, no guns, no nothing. Just her in the hospital and the half assed lie that she had 'fell down some stairs' which is something that was nowhere close to believable, as if she couldn't even give him a _good_ excuse for her hospitalization. So he did he have the right to react the way he did? Hell. Yes._

_He made his way to the elevator to get the hell out of the sick ridden place, torn between cursing Nel's very existence in his life and being frustrated at himself for being so much of a douche bag to her that she'd feel the need to believe that he couldn't handle knowing things about her. Feeling around in his pocket for his cell phone, he recited the number to his favorite take out place, planning to crush out his frustration with kung pao Chicken and chao lo mein, cursing when his hands came up empty._

_'Must have left it in the room,' he thought, suddenly pissed off by the fact that he'd have to walk right back into what he had just walked away from._

_So he waited for the elevator to go back up to her floor again, and then took that long walk down the hall to her hospital room once more. The door was open when he arrived, hushed voices ringing out inside. He could make out hers and that of a more masculine origin. Peering inside, he observed her new company, sure not to alert either of them of his presence. The masculine came from a man ranging anywhere from his mid twenties to his extremely early thirties. He had brown, wavy hair, his steely blue-grey eyes set on Nel, card in one hand, her hand grasped in the other._

_Friendly actions. It was obvious that man knew something about Nel's predicament that he Grimmjow didn't. This fact was made obvious even more so by the conversation in the room hushed do low he could barely even make out the words._

_"It was never meant to happen this way," the man was saying. "I was simply delivering the message. Who would've know that's what he had up his sleeve the whole time."_

_"I understand." This time it was from her. "It's just like him to do something like that. Holding onto things until they lack the strength to fight back."_

_For a moment they were silent, the brunette tensing before finally speaking. "When you left, is this what you had intended it to be like?"_

_She looked at him, eyes reflecting sadness. "I don't really know what I was expecting of the outcome. When I walked out, I was way in over my head. I knew he wouldn't like it, and subconsciously I knew what the consequences of my actions would be. I just…"_

_The man seemed to understand what she was trying to say. "Is it worth it?" he asked her._

_Grimmjow could see her fingers tightening around the man's hand, nostalgic smile spreading across her face. "Most definitely. Is life as I had inner most dreamed it would be? No. But I happen to be more than content with it."_

_The two held this look for a moment before the man pulled his hand from her, gently moving hers back to her person. "He doesn't come out and say it, but your lack of presence somewhat bothers and amuses him. I don't exactly know what it is, but he's planning something big, and this time I don't think you'll be able to run from it this time."_

_Nel didn't answer, simply continuing to smile softly at the man until he took it as his cue to leave. The man passed Grimmjow on his way out, giving him a low greeting before leaving, mumbling away about angry kids and how much he needed a nap._

_As soon as he was sure the man was gone, Grimmjow made his way into Nel's room, making sure to leave the door open for a quick getaway. She looked up at him, giving him a quick once over before staring into her lap. "You left your phone," she said softly. "It by the flowers."_

_He nodded, tense and awkward, picking up the electronic before looking at her. Bandaged up head, head covered, and stitches running down her arms. The image of a liar, his own personal demon. The image of beauty. Because even after all that, he couldn't find it in himself to hate her. He wanted to, desperately so. And yet, there was no way he could._

_"If you really want to know, I'll tell you what of it I feel comfortable with saying tomorrow." He voice comes out so soft, he almost missed the fact that she was even talking to him._

_Gaze intense he stared her down, threatening her to be lying. "Why not tell me now."_

_"I don't like explaining things like this in a rush. Visiting hours are almost over, meaning that, according to the rules, its time for you to go."_

_Giving her a feral smirk he leaned over the bed, cupping her face in his hands. "When have I ever given a fuck about rules?"_

_She let out a short laugh meeting his lips halfway. Fire and feigned sweet innocence with a touch of meds. That's exactly what she tasted like to him. Her lips moved as roughly on his as his did to her, motives completely different. They were never much for matching up emotionally. They broke apart to the visitation of the nurse who informed him that visiting hours were over._

_"You'll tell me tomorrow?" he asked before he left._

_"Promise."_

True to his prior thoughts, the next day Grimmjow found himself on Kurosaki's doorstep once again at noon. Noon because he had called Kurosaki up and discussed a meeting time? No. He really didn't care what prior engagements the boy had already agreed to as long as he was home, because in his book, this meeting was way more important than anything having to do with the boy's social life.

Knocking on the door, he waited somewhat anxiously for it to be opened. He shuffled through the documents in his hand, straightening them out. From his own inferences, Kurosaki knew more about Nel's situation than he was giving out. Hopefully these documents on hand would be enough to bring forth the information that had been left out on their last meeting. Not to mention, he may be able to use them to give Kuchiki a reason to look up some info on some of the more 'suspicious' parties.

Within all the documents that he had found, he chose to leave out those that Nel had written, and just give a summary of what had been in them. He wasn't going to leave them in the dark about them, but the entries were just too… He didn't know the term for it. All he knew was that he was uncomfortable with the thought of anyone else putting their hands on them.

Lost in his thought, Grimmjow barely noticed when the door was opened to reveal the scowling face of one Ichigo Kurosaki. Of course the man's face eased up a bit when he saw who it was at the door, eyes flashing to the blue haired man's occupied hand s to his face, shining with slight confusion.

"You come to drop something off?" he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the filed documents.

"Drop something off?" asked Grimmjow, repeating the words just spoken. "Nah. Need your help going through this is all." He stood there in the hall for a minute, his calculating stare evenly matching Kurosaki's. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

He didn't wait for an answer, merely pushing his way in and looking around for a small black haired young woman. "Where's Kuchiki?" he asked, laying the folders gently on the table and ignoring the irritation spread onto Kurosaki's features.

"Don't know," the boy slowly let out. "I choose not to keep tabs on the midget."

He joined Grimmjow at the table, the blue haired man's face frowning up at the answer. He needed both Kurosaki's and Kuchiki's help with this. One, he wasn't willing to have to read half of these documents, because that was more than he preferred to read on a daily basis. And two, Kuchiki happened to be the only person he knew with the connections to get information on Aizen and company.

"Well then call her and tell her to get her ass over here," Grimmjow let out slowly, hand on the stack of documents.

Kurosaki seemed prepared to argue but must have thought against it, seeing as his next actions were to get up and call the girl up. Grimmjow watched him the whole time he was on the phone, watching as the boy quickly became more and more irritated before finally hanging up abruptly and with more force than necessary. He took his seat at the table once more, arms crossed and scowling as he gave Grimmjow a curt, "She'll be here in ten."

Five minutes later and Kurosaki's anger seemed to have curbed. "So what's in all those papers?" he asked, voiced traced with vague curiosity.

"Not sure exactly," Grimmjow answered honestly. "Nel was keeping them in whatever Aizen affiliated place she was staying in. All I know is that each has one common factor in them. Nnoitra Gilga."

For a brief second the strangest look passed over Kurosaki's face. Confusion, recognition, and anger all rolled into one, it wasn't something Grimmjow was used to seeing on a daily basis. And as fast as it had come it was gone with the incessant ringing of the doorbell.

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**AN: Sorry for the errors but lets talk about the happy things in this chapter. 1) We've finally discovered what happened with Nel's journal entries, sorta (which was quite "fun" to write actually). 2) They finally kissed, even if it was in a flashback and totally non descriptive (it was kind of awkward for me to write because the whole time I was thinking how gross it would be to make out with a patient cuz I wouldn't know if they were strong enough to have brushed their teeth and they probably tated like what ever sick stuff they put down your throat). And 3) The golden couple is one step closer to meeting up (that deserves a moment of recognition...crap, I'm still thinking about how gross it's be to make up with a hospital patient). **

**On a kinder note, I found that flashback (and all of them) quite interesting. Kind of shows how all through their relationship Nel was keeping secrets but Grimmjow always knew they were there. So did she ever explain stuff to him? Yeah. Its just that none of it included Aizen. And in case you were wondering who was visiting her (as if his exit wasn't obvious enough) it was Starrk (which I can't remember if I've been spelling it in the story with one R ot two, but I definitely think two looks way cool). Hope you guys enjoyed the chappie. Over and out.**


	16. Chapter 15

**AN: Yeah new chapter which would have been up earlier but I've been too busy rediscovering television in the form of marathons (Law and Order: SVU, Jerseylicious, Silent Library, Investigation Discovery Channel - it gives me ideas and inspiration for this fic). Oh joys. Personally though I've realized a trend in my chapters. They all seem kind of slow, as if nothing that exciting is happening. Or maybe its just my personal demons trash talking me again. I'll take honest opinions on this one since I already know what will be happening soon to pick the story up a bit (but its a secret). Read the chapter and enjoy (hopefully).**

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**Chapter 15**

"You better be happy I even came over here." Voice tinged with irritation, Kuchiki sat at the table, voicing her personal frustrations towards her easiest target, i.e. Kurosaki. "Some of us actually have a _real _job, in which we are required to _show up_ in order to be paid." She threw a nasty glare at her close 'friend'.

"Not my idea," defended the orange haired man. "Besides, I think something interesting is about to be shared with us. You like to feel like you're in on something exclusive so I bet you'll find this to be a _blast_."

A small fist darted out, hitting the man dead point in the stomach, its owner not even sparing him a glance. "What are those?" a dainty hand pointed to the files currently covering the kitchen table.

Grimmjow, who had been amusedly watching the duo's displays of the dysfunction in whatever sort of 'relationship' they had, took this as his cue to get serious about things. "These-" he pointed to the files, "-are the reason why I am here today. A couple days back, I was looking around for information on Aizen and his Espada when I came across some information about a place that had become a headquarters of sorts for them. Did some snooping around and discovered that Nel had been there recently been there, and decided to check out the place where she had been staying and find out what she had done while she was there. That place is where I found these, had a shit load of them. Didn't have enough time to go through them all while I was there, so before I left, I took them all with me. I never really read them, so I have no idea what they say, but there is one thing that stands out about each document: one highlighted name."

He paused for dramatic effect, catching his breath, tired of talking rather than actually _doing _something. But before he could even reveal what that common factor was Kurosaki beat him to it, the name coming out his mouth muffled and frustrated. "Nnoitra Gilga."

He watched the duo's reactions to the information. Kurosaki just sat there stony faced, deep in thought. What he didn't miss was the slight drawing in of Kuchiki's brows, her face clouded in question. Obviously this wasn't the first time either of them had heard the name. And guessing by the two different reactions, not only had they encountered the name on different accounts, but the man's presence in Nel's life would, or already has lead to, something bad. Not that he hadn't picked up on that already.

"I'd ask where you two had met the man before, seeing as how obvious it is to out two and two together that you've all met, but I'm sure this is information that neither of you would like for me to know." He wasn't lying; he wasn't going to ask. Not that not knowing something that could possibly be critical to all of _this _didn't irritate him. Hell, if the situation had been different he wasn't above using force to find out what he wanted to know. But he was sure that if they weren't telling, then it was something he was better off not hearing. Or rather, wouldn't be able to handle hearing at the moment.

At least the two had the decency to look guilty about the revelation that he had revealed to them, Kuchiki trying in vain to smooth it over. "It's not that we don't want you to know, it's just that…' She gave Kurosaki a look for help, chiding him to add onto whatever bullshit they decided would sound nice.

Blunt as hell, Kurosaki let out a sigh, not even bothering to cushion his words. "Bottom line," he said, "Nel and him had some sort of fucked up and toxic style relationship. It ended at its climax and she dropped off the map, alright. Again, like the reason she initially worked for Aizen, no one knows why it started or how exactly it ended. Granted, we actually have a vague grasp of how it ended this time, it's something you'd want to hear from the horse's mouth, seeing as said horse and company are the only ones who have the untarnished story."

Though the description brought up no real form of clarity, it did happen to remind Grimmjow of a possibly important key he had forgotten all about. Kurosaki said that Nel and Nnoitra had been in some sort of fucked up relationship with Nnoitra that ended badly. This matched up perfectly with the entries that he had found that must have come from Nel's journal.

He nodded slowly in response to Kurosaki's words, deciding that now was a good time to bring up the "documents" that he had already read. "The real untarnished story. Straight from the horses mouth, right? To be completely honest, there are some papers out of that room that I've already read, but for personal reasons, chose to leave them out. I don't exactly understand their relevance in coordination with all the other documents, but I'm assuming that they must be important in some shape or form.

"If I remember correctly, the first entry was about some art gallery she went to with Aizen. Halfway through she b rings up how she believes that Nnoitra know s some secret about her and she's scared that he'll find out about something she didn't need him to know about. The second was about how Aizen had a stronger interest in her than all the other Espada. The third detailed some day that Nnoitra stalked her. And the last, well that was written the day she some plan she speculated Nnoitra had for destroying was putting into action. I'm guessing that's the proverbial climax of what you just told me. She stayed up all night writing down 'secrets' that Aizen only had told to her. She got to one, probably the only one she had found out on her own, about Nnoitra. She never got the opportunity to finish."

Hands clenched in disgust at the words that had and were to come out of his mouth. Did he blame himself for all the messed up shit that was happening? No. He 100% blamed Aizen for all of that. But still…it all just felt wrong. Something with his whole story just felt extremely wrong. And he figured that even if he did know what Kurosaki and Kuchiki were keeping from him, it alls till wouldn't make any sense. The only person who knew the full story, the _correct _story, was Nel. And she wasn't around to say anything. Still, he had to finish. Not for Kurosaki, not for Kuchiki, but for himself.

Jaw tightening, face steeling he breathed in deeply. He wasn't sad. Hell would freeze over the day he'd let something like this bring him even near that tear ridden direction. He was angry. No, it was more than that. But despite how much fire ridden turmoil was within him, he could still talk. He could say it. All he had to do was force the words out.

"I can only assume that this was at the point where Nnoitra, or someone with him, walked in. Someone got hurt, most likely her. Left blood on the papers. Stopped her form writing down his secret. Forced her to stop. Only thing that doesn't make sense is why she still has the papers if it were so important that nobody find out about what he was hiding."

For the first time since the start of his speech, Grimmjow looked up at the duo. Neither's face had had much change in expression since the original mention of Nnoitra's name. A little more frustrated, but other than that, nothing greatly expansional.

Kuchiki was the first to break the silence that they sat in after the closing of Grimmjow's monologue, her eyes meeting his dead on. "Those were the only ones she had in the room?"

"From what I found, yes, but I doubt those are the only ones that she wrote. Between each is a big time gap usually at least a month or two long."

The woman seemed to toy with the idea in her head for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "Maybe it's possible that he did take the journal, or at least only those four entries in specific."

"You're saying he attacked her, got a hold of the journal, then took only those four entries, and then, later along down the line, Nel somehow managed to get them back into her possession?" Kurosaki asked slowly, seemingly catching on.

In theory, Grimmjow thought it was a good idea, minus one factor. "Why those four entries in specific?" he asked. "The only standout ones were the third and fourth. Hell, he wasn't even mentioned in the second one. So why would those four be so important to protect?"

At that point they had come to a standstill, none of the three able to come up with a plausible and probable answer. Of course they had run through quite a few possible theories. The papers were merely used to bring back a specific memory of some other event. Maybe those were the only entries that mentioned the man and he was trying to completely erase his presence from anything related to her. Perhaps the entries taken out were some sort of code. Could the dates just be symbols of important monuments in their 'relationship'.

Regardless of their efforts, the fact remained that they had yet to accomplish Grimmjow's original goal for coming out here. In truth, he had completely forgotten about the documents but it really was time they actually delved into them.

"So how are we going to do this?" Kurosaki asked him, stretching out in his chair.

Hands reaching for the files, Grimmjow sighed at the idea of getting to work and half that the topic of the journal was over. Splitting the pile into three separate stacks, he placed one in front of each of the table's occupants. "I say we read through these, pull out anything that significantly stands out, and then give an overview of what your stack had to offer."

Kuchiki thumbed through the pages, eyebrow raised. "Like school all over again. Do you know how long it'll take to get through all of this? I swear, it has to be in at least size 5 font."

"Read it, skim it. I don't _care_ how the fuck you do it. Consider this a matter of life and death, _Nel's _life or death. And if reading all this crap is what I need to bring me closer to what I need to find her, then so be it."

"Well I'm going to throw a wild card here and say that I agree with Grimmjow," let out Kurosaki, much to his short companion's discontent. "Not that I'm enjoying donating my free time, but Nel is among dangerous people and, if Nnoitra has any say in it, then danger is just around the corner." He flipped through all the papers he had before stopping to point down to the last date. "All the print dates don't go back past the last year, while the actual publishing extends farther. She obtained all of these recently, but I'm guessing they aren't exactly new."

Petite eyebrows raised deftly, their owner looking down at the papers in hand. "So you mean to say that he's looking to start trouble with her while at the same time, she's been keeping tabs on him for one reason or another?"

"Story of her fucked up life," drawled out the resident blue haired man. "Only way to discover is to actually read what's inside."  
So he did, eyes looking through each document intensely, accompanied by a series of shuffles, chair scrapes, and sighs form the power duo. His eyes began to burn as all the words blurred together from exhaustion, both mental and physical. He hadn't had dinner, hell, he hadn't even had lunch. It had already grown past midnight and all he wanted to do was sleep.

In a split second decision, he had decided to take a break from all the reading, use the bathroom, and get a glass of water. Kurosaki and Kuchiki had long since passed out; her body draped to rest against his, peace spread across both their faces. Papers lay haphazardly around the table, the stack in the middle being of those they deemed 'important'. All 5 of those from the million that it seemed she had printed.

Pushing out of the chair, he made his way to one of the two doors visible in the apartment, guessing it to be the bathroom. Guess correct, he made his way inside, relieving himself before cleansing his hands in the lukewarm water of the sink.

Fingers drenched, he peered into the mirror. He looked like shit. Absolute crap. Face unshaven, bags under eyes, hair unkempt and growing out too long. But his outward appearance was nothing compared to how he felt inside. Like he wanted to smash the man in the mirror to bits for being such an incompetent fool. As if he couldn't do _anything_ to bring him closer to finding her. As if Aizen were almost better than him.

Splash. Splash the water on your face and try to wash all the messed up crap away. Too bad he had already known that wouldn't work. Because he was still in the bathroom of someone who was practically a stranger and she was still just beyond his reach.

Five minutes later he was out of the bathroom drinking water in the kitchen from directly under the faucet, excess slipping down his chin. Wiping off his face, he turned the faucet off and made his way back over to the table with the sleeping couple. His mood was completely sour. What better to do now than drown his sorrows in documents? Highlight of his fucking life. If he was lucky, this may lead him to some ass that he could kick.

Head buried in papers, he began to nod off into the land of green haired sirens and puppet masters with indestructible strings, breezy music playing in the back ground the whole time.

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**AN: I just noticed something about this in that bathroom scene. I'm starting to revert back to my favorite writing style in the middle of this story which is awkward. I'm really working on trying to capture the 'emotional turmoil' within Grimmjow at the moment so that when he and Nel finally meet up again (which will happen before the ending of the story) I can appropriately sculpt the image. Unfortunately for me, I capture the emotion in that short and slightly depressing sentence fragment structure (i.e. "splash. spalsh the water on your face and try and was all the messed up crap away). Yeah, that was done intentionally, though I'm not too sure about using that style too often in the story. So I'll leave that up to you, the reader's opinions of whether or not that offers better emotional insight since I feel the chapter lacked that.**


	17. Chapter 16

**AN: This took forever to figure out how to write and even after I finished I refused to post it until I had the next chapter finished too, but that one won't be posted for a bit, because I'm going on a mini-cation. Yeah. So enjoy the chapter (which you will so obviously notice that I was hungry throughout the process of writing).**

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**Chapter 16**

_Green and red and black. He'd seen a swarm of all three colors on the street that night. One moment he's just minding his business, walking home with his Micky D's in hand and the next thing he knows, he's witness to a potential crime in the making. Of course, being the curious person he is, his interest was immediately taken at the first sounds of shouting. But, seeing as he had yet to have the opportunity to take even one bite of his Big Mac yet, he wasn't planning on letting that curiosity talk him into any trouble. No, he'd just ignore away, walk home, and savor the food he'd stood in line for 20 minutes to receive._

_Unfortunately for him, this brewing of trouble seemed to be taking place right on his road home. So what do you do when you hear screams on a dark street? Keep walking? Call the cops? Try to be a hero? For Grimmjow, it was none of the three. Curious is as curious does, and curiosity says 'let's go check that crap out!'._

_3 people littered the dark street, one shriveling on his knees, another tall and looming over the first, and the third standing a couple feet away from the other two. "I'm going to ask you one last time. _Where is it?_" The voice was faint, high pitched and feminesque, while maintaining its more threatening tone. It came from the figure standing a distance from the other two, who he supposed was a woman. And by the words she was using, none of them were there for a friendly round of chatter._

_"I-I don't know." This time the words came form the man on the ground. The lanky figure, in reaction, took a lecherous step towards him, closing in. "I really don't!" It was a beg, a plead, for the other two to believe him. Such a plead went ignored for the moment the words had slipped out of the mess of a man's mouth, the looming figure stuck. Arm launching out, a fist slammed into the side of the cowering man's face, sending him into the asphalt._

_"Fuck that shit," let out the obnoxiously tall man, clenching and unclenching his fist, preparing to strike again. He pulled the other man up by his hair, lifting him to his knees once more. "Really, don't take it personal. We're just fallowing orders here. Find out where boss man's 'treasure' is and if you're not cooperating, we're to deliver a…message."_

_"Message received! Message received!" the short man wheezed out quickly. "I know now! I'll look harder!"_

_A grin spread over the other man's mouth at this, revealing large white teeth that seemed to shine in the darkness. Hand flying into the stomach of his captured prey, he let out a short chuckle. "I don't think so."_

_Fist crushing into the man's skull, he held him still this time, denying him the option to go down. The man became his personal punching bag; 2 hits to the nose and one to the mouth before he finally threw him down to the ground._

_The man on the ground weakly made to raise his arms up to shield his body only to be stopped by a foot racing down onto the limb, crushing it into the pavement until it broke. He cried out in pain, the foot coming down again on the injury, before stomping into his abdomen. Once, twice, then three times and the man was coughing up blood. The rose again, just to be frozen in mid air by the sound of one audible word._

_"Stop."_

_It came from the woman who Grimmjow had easily managed top forget was there, seeing as how she had remained silent during this apparently not-so-random act of violence. Her arms were crossed, body seething authority as she gaze stonily at the tall man._

_"What the fuck you just say?" It was less of a question from the man, and more of a threat towards the woman's safety._

_Hazel eyes flickering dangerously, she held firm. "I said _stop_." She paused for a moment, eyeing the foot now in mid air. "So _do it_."_

_That large grin spread into a large smirk as the man lowered his foot onto the ground. "Sure thing princess," he let out, making his way over to her, body leaning itself over hers. He leant in close to her face, whispering into her ear. Grimmjow didn't catch what the man had said, but he did catch the way the man doubled over, clenching his abdomen, wheezing out curses._

_"The message has been delivered," the woman forced out. "Now let's _go_."_

_The tall man stalked off, still half stooped over, followed by the woman. As she walked off the street light flickered on momentarily, basking her in the glow of artificial light. He saw green. And then as quickly as the light had appeared, it went off, both figures disappearing into the night, leaving the shriveling man on the ground behind._

Min fuddled, groggy, and slow, Grimmjow woke up that morning, took one look at the place that he was in and allowed one thought to go through his head. _'What the hell?'_ He was sleeping face down in a pile of papers that happened to be stuck to his face with sweat, cheeks and chin slightly damp from his own late night drool. Across from him some orange haired guy and an extremely vertically challenged black haired girl were passed out against each other, the man seemingly about to slide out of his seat. The whole table was scattered with papers and files and pictures that he figured he was supposed to be doing something with.

Stomach growling, it all started to come back to him. He was in the orange dude, Ichigo Kurosaki's, home and they were all supposed to be reading through these files and the like. Oh yeah, and it was all to find his girlfriend who was currently MIA after leading a double life that he had no clue about, leaving him with the revelation of the fact that he was, is, and always will be the incompetent bastard that she had once referred to him as. What a nice way to start a morning.

In his mind, he processed the fact that he should probably thank the two unfortunate people that he had dragged into helping him out with all this, but seeing as his mood hadn't been at its normal 97%, that wasn't anything that would be happening any time soon. But that didn't mean he couldn't do them the favor of helping himself so he didn't go hungry. Eyes scanning the room, he visually locked in on the refrigerator, nodding slightly to himself at his own 'accomplishment'. Silently pushing out his chair, he made his way over to the appliance, opening it and letting its cool breeze fill the room.

1/4 a carton of milk, 3 eggs, a half eaten turkey sandwich, a rotting head of lettuce, and an Xbox 360 controller. What the hell? All the food in here was either rabbit feed or would require more than the minimal amount of effort he was willing to expend to cook. So what did Kurosaki have to eat around here if his fridge was pretty much empty? Cup Noodle? But more importantly to Grimmjow, what was _he_ supposed to eat?

Of course he could always just look in the cabinets for food but he wasn't much in the mood for hide and seek, nor did he want to risk waking up the other two occupants of the room. He could always just eat the sandwich, but he wasn't sure he wanted to risk catching whatever kind of incurable disease that Kurosaki could be walking around with. He could always just wake the guy up and force him to find some food…

Stomach growling again, his lazy form of hunger won out and he just decided to take the sandwich and the milk. He brought it back to the table, opening the milk and taking a drink before getting back to the papers he had left to read through. He could read, eat, and drink all at the same time.

So he did, taking care not to messy up the documents, throwing the milk carton into the trash when the carton was gone along with the sandwich. By the time his portion of the files was done, Kurosaki was just beginning to wake, mumbling off to himself in the process. The boy's eyes opened slowly, closed for a sec, and then opened again, this time startled. He looked to Grimmjow, to the table, to the girl using him as a pillow, then back to Grimmjow again, who was taking the whole scene in with slight amusement.

He smirked, putting his index finger to his lips in the universal symbol for 'quiet', watching Kurosaki's shock morph into irritation. He was mouthed a deft 'fuck you' from the orangette who the proceeded to drop Kuchiki off in what he guessed was a room with more comfortable sleeping grounds. He came back a few minutes later, scratching his stomach and peering into the fridge.

"What time is it?" Kurosaki threw out to him, voice slightly muffled from how deep his face was in the cool appliance.

Rolling his eyes, Grimmjow leant back in his chair. "How the fuck should I know?" He took a quick glance at the clock on the microwave. "Like 6:45 in the morning." _'Early,'_ he thought. _'Or maybe, it's super late.'_

Either way, he was dead tired and even though reading had taken his mind from that fact, it was done none and he promptly felt like shit all over again. He just wanted to fall into the safety of his own bed and drown in it, pretending he was sleeping on a cloud instead of an off brand tempurapedic mattress. Pretend that the past 24 hours, or rather the past few weeks, had never happened. Who knew, maybe it was all just a super long dream that he had yet to wake up from and in reality he was just in a coma after some freak accident that he had survived through due to a miracle.

"I'm about to head out," he said, stretching his arms as he got out his seat, legs half numb. "I've already finished my reading, so I'll be back here to check out you guy's info, erm…whenever."

"Wait? What?" Came from the man in the refrigerator, who seemed to be looking for something that Grimmjow was positive he'd never find.

He didn't answer, simply making his way to the door before deciding to toss out a quick reference to the fact that Kurosaki should do some shopping. "I forgot to tell you but I finished off your sandwich and you're out of milk too."

He left there, making it to his building in record time, ready to pass out and dream of better days. His mind was fogged in a thick haze, his body moving on auto pilot, but as he walked into his humble abode, he couldn't help but felt that something was off.

Closing the door behind him, he scanned the place slowly. Couch in place, pillows in sync, kitchen lights off, TV off, tables messy as ever, laptop open. Just as he'd left all of it. And yet he couldn't strike the feeling that something was undoubtedly different. So he did a nice 180, stopping to face the door, pausing at the sight of crimson red on his hardwood floor. Not blood, but an envelope, probably slid in under his door or something, most likely an 'or something'.

Picking it up precariously with two fingers, he made his way to his kitchen table, dropping the item off on his stack of Nel related paraphernalia that crowded the space. The sensible thing for him to do would be to open the envelope, and check out what its contents had to say for itself. But from his past experience with all these 'mysterious' findings, he wasn't sure he was in the mood for a new 'discovery' of one of Nel's _many_ secrets. As far as he was concerned this was just another letter to her from Aizen that was more than a tad bit late in the delivery process. Or maybe. Aizen just kept sending him all this bogus crap for Nel in a way of taunting him over the fact that he had something that he wanted.

Whatever the heel it was, Grimmjow knew he wasn't feeling checking it out. All he wanted was to sleep and take advantage of nature's own therapy. So rather than indulging in the message that had been delivered to him, he abandoned it all on his table, making his way to his bedroom's overpriced almost name brand mattress, hoping to fall asleep on contact.

4 hours of sleep later, he was up again, renewed, refreshed, and the envelope completely erased from his mind. Erased, that is, until he made his way back into the kitchen for some water, and took a glance at the pile of 'evidence' on his table, the flash of red immediately catching his eyes. He downed the rest of his glass, figuring that now was as good of a time as ever to discover what questions or answers this envelope had for him.

He picked it up, admiring the quality of the envelope, assuming that whatever was inside must be more important than all the other letters sent. This one seemed to be more…official. It was smooth, the material expensive, and held together with an initialed wax seal. S.A. Souske Aizen.

Fingers searching gently for an opening, he carefully pulled the flap of the envelope up, revealing the crisp white square of imprinted cardstock. He pulled it out, first observing the blank white front, then flipping it over to examine the single digit printed in that familiar gothic font, his eyes narrowing at the sight of it.

"What…the…hell?" he asked aloud, double checking to be sure his eyes did not deceive him. Plain as day it was there. The number seeming to gaze so perceptively back at him. 6. The number 6.

* * *

**AN: Yeah, I think the main points here were the flashback and the ending. I'm mainly excited to get a move on to the next few chapters because Grimmjow and Nel are about to meet up again soon (FINALLY!) and that is something that I've been putting a lot of effort into because I want it to be perfect. So yeah keep a look out for the next chapter and the one (or two) after that, because there will be a lot of info there and, they will hopefully be at least a smidgen more interesting than this one was.**


	18. Chapter 17

**AN: I had meant to post this up on Monday so I could have the next chapter up today, but I've been experiencing 'technical problems' since that time. Anyways, enjoy the chapter, even though I find it kind of boring.**

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**Chapter 17**

6. The sole text on the back of the card was simply the number 6. Definitely not what he was expecting, and even more so if, he did suspect a number to be there, that certainly wasn't the one he'd have even considered would appear. Aizen sends letters 'to' Nel, and from what he had gathered, Nel was number 3. So why was that not what he was looking at?

Initially he had assumed that it was some mistake, a mix up in the drop off, that maybe the makeshift mailman had gotten confused and dropped someone else's crap off at his place. But as he thought more and more about that, the idea became even more unlikely. Aizen was an extremely efficient man, and for the fact that the guy was leading a secret life as a criminal over lord and master mind, Grimmjow highly doubted that something like that would happen.

His next thought of action was that it was some sort of code, possibly a message within itself. 2 multiplied by 3 is 6. He and Nel make 2 people. Nel is number 3. So could 6 be the result of something that has to do with him and Nel? Maybe it was a message that if he and Nel did something that interfered with her 'job' it would result in something to do with the number 6. Could 6…be Grimmjow?

Or maybe…maybe Aizen was just toying with him. Seeing as how Aizen was currently in the process of manipulating Nel into doing his every whim, Aizen must have known that there was no way of her receiving this message, which means that it must have been meant specifically for Grimmjow. And Grimmjow didn't doubt that Aizen knew he was looking for Nel. Aizen was currently in possession of Nel. Aizen has who Grimmjow wants. So why wouldn't the man toy with him? Give him fake leads, send him around in circles, make him think that he was getting closer to her when in reality he was just making a fool of himself. And the whole time Aizen could just watch it all go down.

Looking down at that white square again, Grimmjow realized that he was unsure of the truth. _'There has to be more,'_ he thought, despite the fact that all of this unrelentless thought was taking its toll on him. It was clouding his mind and probably leaving him more paranoid then he'd been in ages. He turned the piece of cardstock round and round in his fingers, examining it with utmost suspicion, before throwing it down in a bought of frustration for the very reason that everything was becoming too hard. It was all becoming too…too _much_.

One moment everything is all fine, or rather, everything is all _normal_, and the next… the next a cop is telling him that the most important person in his life is gone. Not that she actually was, but she might as well be. Because from that very moment everything had unraveled, it had all fallen to pieces. Everything he thought he knew, or at least most if it, was wrong. So very wrong. She had been over there suffering and he hadn't even noticed, and the times he did…The point is, he wanted to, no, he _had_ to make up for that. He _had _to make up for what she went through. And he _had_ to make sure that it never happened again. But it was all too damn…

He brought his foot up, anger rising in his body, nearly cancelling out rational thought. He was about to stomp on the 'message', stamp it out of his life and assume it was all just a trick. But then he noticed _it_. He noticed the more that he had been thinking had to be along with it. And more came in the form of another white card, this one smaller than the first.

He picked it up precautiously with two fingers glaring at it with muted curiosity. There was writing on it; no it had to be typed. That much he could tell, because all the print was tiny he could barely make out the fact that there were letters. Hell, he'd probably need a magnifying glass to figure anything beyond that point out. But at least that gave him something, and something was another clue, another chance at figuring all this shit out.

* * *

It was about 4 hours since finding the new 'message' from Aizen, that Grimmjow found himself outside of Kurosaki's apartment for the 3rd time that week, and frankly he was tired of making the trips. For one, though he did appreciate the help, he was very accustomed to the idea that he needed to rely on help from others to succeed. Especially if others were acting on their own motives that means they could drop out at any time. Not that he believed the kid would do that, but it could happen, and just the potion disturbed him.

For two, he knew for a fact that Aizen wanted Kurosaki on his side, which was a blessing and a curse in one. A blessing because it would mean that they did have some sort of 'advantage' over Aizen seeing as he wouldn't want to cause any serious harm to the man he was trying to coax over to the 'dark side'. But it was still a curse because that didn't allow them a serious advantage over Aizen. Not only could he always just find a replacement, but it also meant that hanging around Ichigo could turn into a danger if Aizen ever wanted to take any serious action. But he supposed he should be happy for the help though, even if he'd rather he not needed in the first place.

So he waited for the door to open once again, and when it did, he barged on in, taking the fact that it even was opened as a sign of welcome. The place looked pretty much like how it had when he had initially left, minus the lack of passed out people and the fact that there was now a bag of groceries on the counter. All the documents were still on the table, albeit now in much neater stacks, and everybody seemed to be less moody, which was a good thing seeing as Grimmjow's whole presence in the two's lives was based on such a heavy subject.

"You came to wrap up the thing with the documents, right?" The question posed came from Rukia, who was currently slumped in a chair, face occupying a paper free section of the table. She seemed kind of drained, but as long as she had the energy to both remember and tell him what she knew, Grimmjow wasn't overly concerned.

"Yeah," he answered. "I think its time we got a move on with this shit. Something big's going to be happening soon, and I get the feeling its going to be the ending to all of this." He made his way to the table, sitting in a chair, his fingers tracing the lines of the red envelope in his pocket.

"What? You got something planned?" asked Kurosaki, who was now making his way to the table, face in its complimentary scowl.

Eyes trained to the stacks of paper on the table, fingers still fumbling g around with the envelope, Grimmjow shook his head. "No. Well not really, anyways. But I have reason to believe that someone's planning to end this little…'game'. I don't know if it's Aizen or-"he pointed to the papers, tapping them lightly with his index finger, "-this guy. All I know is that something's about to happen soon. And if it ends wrong, I may never get her back."

It was silent for a moment, all three seemingly in their own thoughts. "This is all a big game to them, isn't it?" questioned Kuchiki, breaking Grimmjow from the daydream like meddle of thoughts he had managed to lose himself in. Her face was now off the table, back straight and rigid, eyes far off and slightly glazed over, a reminiscent of a look he had seen in Nel's eyes plenty of times. Difference was, Kuchiki seemed angry, like whatever it was going through her mind at the moment had really pissed her off. Chances were, whatever those thoughts consisted of, probably had nothing to do with Nel.

"Well, as far as Aizen goes, I know for a fact this is all just a big game for his amusement. I don't think he really cares what kind of shit happens in the process as long as he comes out on top." Taking note of all the past information he had learned, the rules of this game were starting to get clearer. Grimmjow knew the main players, was beginning to understand the motives for joining, and what the grand prize awarded to the winner was. "He knows that we're looking for Nel, and he hasn't done anything because he doesn't see us as a threat to him. Because, somehow, he's managed to plan something that will ultimately result in him 'winning'."

The two seemed to soak in Grimmjow's revelation, Kurosaki being the one who asked the question pertaining more to the situation at that particular moment. "And Nnoitra?"

"I don't really know about him, but from what you've said, they seem to have had this 'thing' going between them," Grimmjow let out, malice filling the term he used for whatever sort of relationship his girlfriend had with that man. "My best guess is that he'd be the one to look out for since they have…_history_. Unlike Aizen, he has a real motive fueling him."

Nodding slightly, Kurosaki reached for the stack of 'important' papers, shuffling through them, but only pulling out certain ones. "That's good," he let out numbly.

"And _why_ the hell would that be good?" asked Grimmjow, glaring from the man with the brightly colored hair, to the abnormally petite woman next to him who's mouth was in the process of falling into a 'oh' shape as if some thought had just occurred to her.

"Because just like you said," she began, her face now coated with a light smirk, "Nnoitra actually has a real motive. Aizen's doing all of this because he has a selfish superiority complex, too much time on his hands, and because he finds all of this to be amusing. He has nothing to loose in the process of this, or at least nothing emotionally. He's doesn't have any risk of losing his fortune nor his emotional stability in the process of all of this. Since Nnoitra actually has a history with Nel, he, like you, actually has something to lose. He's invested himself into this, which means he's more susceptible to make rash decisions. Those slip ups are what we have on him."

Nodding slowly, Grimmjow recognized the underlying message in Kuchiki's words. _'He, like you, actually has something to lose.'_ The statement was correct, and just like what she had said about Nnoitra, the same went for him. Grimmjow knew he was emotionally invested into this, and frankly, he wouldn't have it any other way. But just like Nnoitra, this meant that he was more vulnerable to slipping up because he let his emotions get the best of him. Then again, the fact that he had so much to lose, only gave him more of a reason to come out on top.

Picking up a sheet of paper, Kurosaki placed it on the center of the table, tapping it lightly. "Let's move onto the next act of business," he suggested lightly. "Take a look at this new place he purchased last month."

Grimmjow took a careful glance at the picture and the blueprints, pushing all thoughts of the similarities between him and the subject at hand to the back of his mind. "It's an old warehouse."

"Exactly. Sounds suspicious right?"

Not really having an idea where Kurosaki was taking this, Grimmjow nodded slowly. "I guess it can. Do you have anything else on it?" he asked, to which he received a no. "What about you?" This time he addressed towards Kuchiki.

Head shaking slightly, she let out a soft negative. "Not really. He's dropped a few things off there, but there isn't a record of what. Mainly I've got the description of what he's been doing the past few months. Apparently the police have been tracking him, but have never actually arrested him. And it's not like he's exactly on the run anyways. He's gotten into enough fights, among other things, in public for anyone to have pressed charges for assault but no one's come forward.

"All of my info ends with him withdrawing a total of $25,000 from various accounts, getting 5 hookers, and then picking some Tesla guy up from the airport. Apparently he was returning from a trip to Guatemala. Everything else was pretty much just him doing normal people stuff."

Despite the fact that it was now Grimmjow's 'turn' to share the information he had learned, his mind had gone off on another route with the details of Kuchiki's findings. Or rather, he was focusing on key name. "Who was the guy he picked up from the airport, again?" He already knew what the name was, having heard it mere moments ago, but there was no loss in being absolutely sure.

"Tesla," the dark haired woman answered slowly. "It didn't offer any last name though. Why the interest?"

"I've heard, no, I've seen that name somewhere before." He thought back, shuffling through memories before he found the one he wanted. The medicine cabinet. The pill bottle that was out of place. The note inside of it. His mind made the connection instantly.

"I remember now," he said. "Back when I was in the room where Nel was staying in Aizen's headquarters. I was going through all of her shit when I found this prescription bottle of pills that were made out to this Tesla guy. There was a first and last name, but the last name there had been scratched out. Thing was, there weren't any pills in the bottle, only a note for Nel."

"What did it say?"

_'What did it say?'_ Grimmjow wondered to himself, wishing he had thought to bring it back with him. And he highly doubted they'd just let him stroll on up in there again just because he forgot. They'd probably already fired the chick who had let him in in the first place, regardless of it really messed with Aizen's plans or not.

He could remember the crooked scrawl it was written in, the way the lines were separated into different verses as if it were some poem. He remembered the man threatening her. Telling her that'd he'd find her. No. That's not right. It was more specific than that…he said…he said he wanted to finish what she had started.

All the pieces began to fit together, suddenly making more sense to Grimmjow now, than it had when he had originally read it in the room. "I'm thinking the note was from Nnoitra. It said that he was done playing games with her and that he was going to find her and that this time she wouldn't get away. Apparently she was hiding from him, was hiding from him, but had her cornered this time, which makes sense, seeing as their both Espada. They'd have to work together so it's not like he would never know where she was. But mainly, his point was that he wanted to finish what she had started with him. And assuming from what little I know about the time line of their history together, if she actually did anything to provoke this, then it must have happened right before she 'dropped off the map'."

The other two seemed to be absorbing his theory, along with the new found information around into their minds, before Kuchiki looked up at him, gaze piercing. "You said that Nnoitra believes that Nel 'provoked' all of this, right?"

Wondering to himself what was going on in the abnormally short woman's head, he nodded slowly.

"Then I think I know when it happened. I don't specifically know what happened, but I know when. I was with my brother, Byakuya, at the time. He works for the police force and brought me by while he handled some quick business. I wasn't supposed to have heard, but I was young and overly nosy and…well, you know how that goes. Anyways, they had brought Aizen in because they said that two of his 'friends' had gone missing. One of them constantly under suspicion with the police department and the other one was, as they described, probably an innocent bystander.

"They thought that one of the friends, who was a man, had 'kidnapped' the other and then disappeared. At this point in the story, Aizen cut them off, saying that his 'friends' were just on a little 'holiday' and that the both of them were fine and alive. The man who Byakuya was working with at the time, Kaname Tosen, then sent Byakuya to go get something from another room. When he was sure he was gone and couldn't hear them anymore, he told Aizen that he would need replacements for his top ten."

It took a minute for Grimmjow to realize that the story was over at that point. "He didn't say anything back?"

"No. He just chuckled and Tosen told him he should stop playing favorites. Then Byakuya cam back and they started talking about places to go out to dinner. But considering the fact that Nel had gone missing at around the same time Aizen's 'friends' had, I'm guessing that she and Nnoitra were the ones they were talking about. I know the two of them had issues, so I suppose they must have had some falling out that ended poorly. She left, he was mad, and…well anything could have happened to him. All I know is that, unlike her, he never made any attempt to leave the Espada."

"Well…that told me next to nothing. Other than the fact that we now have a time frame to look through, among other things, if it weren't for me, we'd have nothing," Grimmjow concluded. "Because I have leads. You see, my files were pretty much just documenting a lot of the shit Aizen had Nnoitra doing for him and the fact that he had found himself a new 'partner' to do this crap with. The only stranger 'occurrences' were of him going to this diner frequently. Apparently he was going out of his way to visit had been removed from the premises various times for trying to enter the ladies room."

Raising an eyebrow warily, Kurosaki looked over to him. "So he's either a perv with a fetish for the woman in the area or it's of some sentimental value to him."

"Exactly. Either way, I think its worth checking out. This means we have 2 leads from 2 different directions."

"_Two_ leads?" questioned Kuchiki.

"Yeah. 2" Fingers itching in anticipation, Grimmjow pulled out what he had been waiting to show all of this time. Grasping onto the red envelope in his pocket, he gently slid it out and sat it on the table, smirking in triumph. "It's an invitation. An invitation from _Aizen_."

* * *

**AN: Finally! It is over and now I can move onto what I've been waiting all this time for because it actually interests me in a sense that is stronger than a technical one. So, yes, next chapter Nel and Grimmjow 'reunite' (that word sounds so overdramatic and overstated and make me think of old love music) and there will be Bruce Wayne involved (I'm sort of in the middle of a batman obsession), but mainly there'll be Grimmjow and Nel connection outside of a flashback. I'm actually in the middle of typing it right now.**


	19. Chapter 18

**AN: I feel like such a failure right now. Not only do I take forever to update, but I think this story goes awfully slow (which wouldn't concern me as much if I updated faster). This chapter makes me sad…T_T**

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**Chapter 18**

"So do you mind telling me why the hell I'm dressed up like Bruce Wayne again?" Grimmjow asked the short woman next to him who was currently having a bit too much fun rolling over his clothes with a lint roller, which would have been less disturbing if it weren't for the intentional amount of extra force she was using.

She was currently in the process of snorting at his statement, running the roller over his clothes once more before throwing it carelessly onto her couch. "Bruce Wayne? Really? Don't go fooling yourself into thinking that you are that special. Don't tell me you've never had something to actually dress _nice_ for before.

Oh he had dressed nice. He'd never really been a tux man, but he'd had his fair share of wearing nice suits before. But anything like this contraption that Kuchiki had talked him into…well, it was on a completely different level from anything he'd even thought about purchasing for himself. Though he had rented something almost as nice before so he take Nel somewhere fancy (which turned out to mean overpriced with douche bag waiters), it was a one-time deal that he had sworn never to speak of to anyone after it had happened.

"I clean up," he answered, smoothly. "I've just never had a reason to clean up like _this_." He took a look at his black and white covered frame in the mirror. "Though since I must wear it, I will admit, I look _good_." In fact, his thoughts of himself went beyond that, but seeing as he was with company, he decided to keep his full thoughts to himself.

Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, Kuchiki gazed at him with little apprehension. "Yes, I've noticed. My skills combined with a high end suit tend to work magic. But more importantly, you're up to the Aizen standard. _That's_ what truly matters."

No matter how much it disgusted Grimmjow to admit it, Aizen was somewhat trying to impress the rich man. It wasn't that he felt the need to have that bastard's approval, but rather for the fact that he didn't need to give him another reason to be looked down upon. Aizen already had Nel, and, at the moment, the ability to screw with Grimmjow's mind. And he'd be damned if he let himself show up looking as if he were lower than all the uppity party goers who were bound to be oblivious to everything going on around them. Oblivious to everything that Aizen has going on right underneath their noses.

Unconsciously, Grimmjow was trying to impress the only person that he actually hoped would be there. Grimmjow personally didn't actually give a damn what he was wearing when he met up with the green haired vixen again because with the way it played out in his mind, they'd both end up naked anyways. Then Kuchiki just _had_ to go and fill his mind with the land of girly fantasies and expectations, giving him the idea that Nel might actually 'care' about these things because they give a romantic 'atmosphere' and all that crap. So naturally, he took it upon himself to at least try to make part (definitely not all) of that shit Kuchiki spouted on about happen.

A small sigh rang out from behind him, the sound spouting from the young woman who had unceremoniously plopped herself onto her couch in the midst of his mind's absence. He raised an eyebrow in question, not feeling the need to actually ask what was on her mind. He was the carrot top with the fruity name; Kuchiki's feelings may have been 'important' but he had bigger fish to fry.

"Ichigo will be here soon," she said slowly, gaze far off. She paused, the words seemingly incomplete, before turning to him to look him dead in the eyes, her gaze hard and serious. "You remember what we're doing, right?"

_"So how are we going to do this?" Grimmjow asked the dainty-like woman in front of him._

_After he'd pulled out the invitation from Aizen he'd had to sit through ten minutes of arguing over where the magnifying glass was (which had revealed to him 3 minutes in that such an item wasn't even _in_ the apartment in the first place) before nearly flipping the table to get them to shut the fuck up, ultimately having had decided that it'd be better for everyone if he just told them what it said since he'd already read it prior to their meeting. Fancy party, held at a location with an unpronounceable fancy name, Aizen's throwing it, plus one invite, and he planned on attending. Easy and over in less than 60 seconds. Of course it did help that he'd kept the fact about how it came with the whole number 6 card to himself, feeling it not all that important to mention._

_So then he'd have to sit through Kuchiki telling him that this wasn't just some 'fancy party' and how he would have to make a good impression since Aizen had felt it necessary to invite him and all. All of which brought him to where he was at the moment, seeing as Kuchiki was the only one lucky enough to have scored entrance to one of these shindigs before._

_"Well for starters," the woman began, her voice in that half rude half Byakuya Kuchiki uppity tone, "don't fuck anything up by causing a scene at the party. You'll look like a dumbass and will probably screw over any chance of getting Nel back. Plus everyone there will think you're incompetent and gossip about you and ruin your reputation since they have an uncommon feature to identify you by so it's not like anyone will think that they were talking about someone else._

" _Despite how much you may not like me phrasing this, Aizen did you a favor by inviting you in the first place, regardless of if he is aware of it or not. So don't make any rash attacks or actions at him just because he pisses you off and you have good reason. Talk to him as calmly as possible and don't mention the fact that you know who Nel is. In fact pretend you two have never met and that you have no idea what the Espada is. And if he prods, keep playing ignorance._

"_Of course he knows that you know but if you act like you don't it'll give him less of an opening say something that'll set you off. Plus, he won't be able to gage just how much you know, which means that he could let something slip which would grant you new info."_

_He nodded slowly, skipping to the part of greater importance. "And Nel? What about her?"_

"_She'll probably be there, but I'm guessing she's been trying to leave you out of things for your safety, so don't be surprised if she doesn't make to talk to you. Besides, if your going with the plan, then you shouldn't be trying to act all friendly with her anyways. If by any chance you end up in a situation where you two meet up in public, pretend you're a total stranger to her and take it from there, which shouldn't be too hard assuming that she'll probably be in some sort of disguise. And if you absolutely have to talk to her, do it in private; don't be seen and don't be heard."_

_He understood that. Sort of. Could he make any promises to do exactly as Kuchiki had said? Definitely not. Especially since he was beginning to discover how much of the sadist Aizen truly was, seeing as the man would probably take pleasure in the fact that the two of them would be in the same room yet wouldn't be able to do much._

_Grimmjow, being the heroic man that he was, had already mingled with the idea of grabbing Nel and running off with her when he saw her, but immediately thought against (even though he did really like the idea of it). The risk would be too great; too many things could go wrong. Aizen had connections, more so than Grimmjow would liked to have thought about, not to mention Nel's crazy ex boyfriend who seemed to be out for blood. He didn't have any clue how she had managed to escape the former for so long, and add in the latter and it was all a recipe for disaster. But that didn't mean he had no plans for spending time with his favorite woman. Because no matter what Kuchiki said, Nel brought him into this, and there was no way that after coming this far that anything would stop him from telling her that he was getting her out._

"Yeah, yeah," Grimmjow answered. "I remember. Play nice, don't make a scene, don't make fun of the animals, eh hem, _rich people_, and most importantly, leave Nel to do her business."

She nodded slowly, rolling her eyes. "The last of which, is what I doubt will happen, but at least you get the gist of it. If it feels like too much just remember 'don't be a dumbass' which pretty much covers everything I just told you about."

With that being said, the doorbell rang, alerting them to the fact that it was time. This was all really happening. The way it was going down would be that he'd bring Kuchiki along as his 'date' while Kurosaki kept an eye out around the building for anything that might be going down while they were in the inside. If anything happened to give him bad vibes he'd contact them to get out or find some way in himself.

In a blur they'd moved form the Kuchiki mansion to the venue and before Grimmjow knew it, he was in a room full of finely dressed rich people drinking wine served to them by lesser off people carrying shiny silver trays. The first thing he did was down a glass, intending to wash away some of his inhibitions with it. It wasn't as if he were nervous or anything like that, but more so under stress and out of his element.

"Hey, don't you go off and make a fool of yourself," Kuchiki quipped, a glass in her hand as well. "We just got here and it'd be in your favor to stay as sober as possible."

"And you say that with a glass in your own hand," he added. "Are you even old enough to have that?"

She shot him a glare before allowing her eyes to roam the large room. "Found them," she let out slowly.

"Found who?"

"The Espada. They're all wearing white. The same shade of it too. Ichigo says its Aizen's favorite color."

"Really?" The word came out slowly; his mind forced more on spotting what had been pointed out for him. He could see them now; 5 men in dressed in pure white suits and tuxes with black accents, and true to what Kurosaki had told him, they were all sporting more eccentric than average characteristics.

He counted all 5 present in his head, every one of them varying in stature, Grimmjow wasn't sure which one of them he was, but he knew Nnoitra was among them. He could be any of them: the pale creep with the vacant eyes, the pompous looking scarred old man, the pink haired effeminate one, the brune scruffy man that he had seen at the hospital, the overly feminine short one that he was taking a stretch on assuming was male. Okay, so he highly doubted Nnoitra was the last one, and he probably wasn't the pasty dude either or the pink haired one. While he was positive of the fact that each of them did have some sort of 'issue' they didn't look like the type to fit the bill. Or the types to buy hookers and play peeping tom in a ladies' room.

More importantly though, was the fact that he had yet to spot Aizen or Nel, who were his whole reason behind showing up to this thing in the first place. He supposed the two of them could just be making a fashionably late entrance, or perhaps had already arrived and were just out of his line of sight. Either way, he was beginning to get antsy, and was beginning to grow a bad feeling about this whole situation.

An elbow dug sharply into his ribs, knocking him out of his thoughts. Not that it had hurt all that much, but more so it had startled him. "What the f-"

"You're looking anxious when you have nothing to be waiting for, remember?" came from the short woman next to him. "Mingle and relax, okay. Look, I know those people over there. We'll go talk to them."

He was then dragged off to socialize with some of the cities finest, of which were constantly subtly questioning his financial standing and status. Some of the people were interesting and a few of the jokes were even 'funny', but mainly, it was all just a great distraction. And then he saw a woman.

She had black hair swept up into some elegant sort of bun, revealing the long length of her neck, and the milky white of her bare back. Voluptuous and demanding authority in her manners, she was in the middle of a conversation with some French man, her head tilted back as she laughed. She looked perfect, body saved from any markings. Too perfect. And just as she opened her eyes, he realized that she was wearing pure white. Her green eyes met his, her gaze managing to be warm in all their calculating manners before she looked away as if she'd never even seen her in the first place.

A hand grasped onto hos arm, stilling the body that he hadn't even realized had begun to move in the woman's direction. "What are you doing?" hissed the short woman next to him. "You've been looking off into space for five minutes."

He didn't turn to look at Kuchiki, keeping his eyes trained on the only woman in white instead. "That woman over there in white, the one with the French man, go talk to her."

"What? Why?"

"Because obviously I'm not supposed to be seen in public with her, and I doubt I could handle the stranger game at the moment. You get her some place secluded and then tell me where I can meet her."

He stood there impatiently as understanding finally came across Kuchiki's face. "You make it sound like we're abducting her," she hissed. "That better not be your plan. Remember what I told you. Don't be-"

"I know, I know," he brushed her words off. "Don't be a dumbass. And I know what I'm doing, alright? Trust me."

She sighed and made her way over, beginning her introduction before looking over her shoulder, eyes widening briefly. He didn't exactly understand what the hell she was trying to convey until he felt a cold hand on his shoulder, the smooth yet threatening voice nearly startling the piss out of him.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Mr. Jaggerjaquez." And behind him stood the one and only, Souske Aizen.

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**AN: I'm still upset with this. Especially after building up anticipation on Aizen and Nel both meeting up with Grimmjow (and they both technically did) and it's just…weak. But I will say with confidence that he actually does interact with the both of them next chapter. In fact, that's pretty much what the next chapter is (which I know because I already have it written) so I hope to have that typed up and posted by the end of the weekend.**


	20. Chapter 19

**AN: Man, this took longer to get out than I had intended it to…Not to mention the fact that I'm still mourning the fact that I may never own a catsuit. Every time I look for one online, they always try to sell me some from those S and M type stores where they have "stratagetically placed" zippers (which just means they put them on the crotch) and I don't want that stuff. I just want to be Catwoman for Holloween, and maybe relinquish my childhood dream of being a spy. But alas, I suppose I shall now have to look for either a full leather body suit or tight ass leather pants. But that catsuit isn't off my wish list.**

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**Chapter 19**

If Grimmjow believed that Aizen was intimidating just in the pictures he had seen of him online and in the news, his opinion was multiplied times ten at the moment in which they met in person. He had this aura about him that said that even if Grimmjow had no idea who the hell this man was and believed the guy was just your average Joe (which is a highly unrealistic belief in the first place) he'd probably still be shit your pants nervous in front of him. And he had to admit, the most off putting part about the whole thing was the smile that managed to stay on the other man's face the whole time, as if he didn't even notice how his presence affected everyone else.

Grimmjow believed, in theory, if Aizen was any other man, he would seem like the perfect example of the ideal human being. He was about 6 feet tall with a somewhat nerd-chic haircut and glasses framing warm brown eyes to match. Those eyes, in truth, were the second most disturbing trait to Grimmjow because despite all their seemingly innocent nature, they were half empty. But, that was so well hidden, if he didn't already have prior knowledge of what the man was capable of, he probably wouldn't have noticed. And that is what truly pissed him off about the whole situation.

"Mr. Jaggerjaquez, are you alright?"

The unnaturally smooth voice broke him out of his thought filled stupor, nearly startling him once again. He hadn't realized that for the past few minutes he had been glaring off into space, the brunette man's face full of amusement which brought him to be even angrier at himself. Aizen had done so little, and yet, he was already finding himself losing focus of what he was supposed to be doing.

"I'm fine," he answered, the words coming out gruffer than he'd had liked to show. He cleared his throat. "Better than fine, actually."

Aizen let out a slight sound of affirmation, nodding his head slightly. "That's good, especially seeing as we are in the middle of such a joyous occasion. Speaking of which, I hope you are having a nice time so far." The tall man swept a hand out, gesturing to the festivities around them. "A lot of work has gone into the planning of this and I'd find myself very disappointed if my guests did not find it to their liking."

It was now Grimmjow's turn to nod, which he did stiffly, wary, of what the other man was supposed to be hinting at. "Yes," he answered slowly, eyes skimming the crowd. "It's nice, I guess. Real fancy, I guess." He looked around, silently observing all those expensively dressed rich people, drinking their overpriced drinks, dancing to that over-paid "mini orchestra". Each and every one of them without a care in the world. Then there was him, the man in the striped shirt during an enormous game of "Where's Waldo?"

As if he could hear what Grimmjow was thinking, Aizen let out a smooth chuckle, his hand moving onto the blue haired man's shoulder. The grip wasn't exceptionally tight or anything like that, but more so like the kind a father would give to his son. Stay put. That's what the underlying message would be in any other scenario, though to anyone who just so happened to be watching the two men, it would appear more to be a friendly bought of connection. "Mr. Jaggerjaquez, my friend, I have heard much about you. And from the moment I saw what you were capable of, what those who have seen your works have said you were capable of, I just knew, this is a man I would give anything to take under my wing. From the very beginning I said to myself, 'Aizen, this man is going to be going places. And that journey, ah, that is journey I would like to make smoother."

The brunette man gave a wave of his hand, gesturing to the other party goers once again. "You see all of these people here, Mr. Jaggerjaquez? These are my people, my associates, the people I most respect, and, most importantly, my friends. They are all uniquely talented and very fine company, if I do say so myself. I have embraced, encouraged, and nurtured every one of them, so they could all go beyond their limits to become those who they are today.

"Those two. That woman and that man over there. Do you know who they are?" He pointed to a well-dressed business man talking to a woman that Grimmjow could vaguely remember having had seen on television before. "That man was once your everyday computer wizard, his talents wasted on ignorant people who ruined their computers doing ignorant things. But he had potential. We all have it. The potential to be better than our current selves. His life would be thrown away if all he ever did was what he had done in the past. And then he created Breeze. Now I won't go into the technicalities of the program because I don't fully understand it myself and it would be quite boring for me to tell you what I do know of it, but let's just say that it opened doors for his future, allowing him to be speaking as one of the richest men in the country.

"And the woman he's speaking to. I'm sure you know the story. Once an everyday girl, now a chart topper with her own record label and all of that jazz. The point is, they have potential. _You_ have potential. And that potential is something I'd very much like to invest in."

Grimmjow raised his eyebrow in question, put off by the man's overly long monologue. The fact that the whole thing seemed to have nothing to do with Nel was suspicious in its self. Then again, it was vague enough that maybe she was all a part of this. Regardless of that, this whole speech did nothing but reaffirm his dislike towards the other man. He couldn't exactly put his finger on it but something in this was off. Of course he came into this knowing that Aizen had some ultier motive, yet at this point he couldn't pinpoint what it was.

So rather than wrinkling his nose in distaste, and making the rude comment back that was on his mind, Grimmjow asked a question. Plain and simple. "And that would work how?"

Apparently that question was the right question, or it was if the grin that spread across Aizen's face was anything to go by. "I have connections. I know people who are interested in you, but don't know how to meet a man like you, while you don't know how to meet with men like them. But I can be that middle ground. I truly want to see you grow. To know, what you can become form here. I want to see you become very successful."

There was a pause, in which the music had stopped playing, all the people stopped talking, and no one was moving. A chill ran down Grimmjow's spine, and for a moment, just a moment, he really considered what he'd just been told. And then the music picked up again, the people began talking, and the dancing started up once more. But not before he heard it, heard those words in that silent moment.

_"Because I like you Mr. Jaggerjaquez. Because you _deserve_ it."_

The hand on his shoulder loosened its grip, while still managing to guide him across the room as its owner spoke. "I can easily see you on the top; in fact, I highly believe you will be there one day. For this reason, I plan to show you something that I've never shown anyone else. Or at least, not on a knowledgeable level. You see, I'm about to show you to my biggest treasure, my greatest success.

"I found her one day, a little foreign girl on the streets in the midst of a minor dispute with the police. Confused and scared; she was really a pity to have seen. Others had just brushed her off as a petty thief, but I, I saw her potential. I took her under my wing, showed her how life could be, everything that could be hers if she played her cards right. These cards, I funded them, I melded her, shaped her, and now she has achieved personal greatness. She's multi lingual, has a taste and understanding for the cultural aspects in life, her mind has been stretched past the normal limitations that the average person sets for her. She's ideal, unbelievably so. Of course, it came at a price, but is greatness not worth it? Which is why you are the first to have met her so early on. And perhaps, on day with my help, a woman like her could be yours."

They came to a stop behind a cluster of middle aged business men, all in the process of laughing at some joke that had been told. But with a slight clearing of his throat, all attention abruptly turned to the brunette man. They were all eager to greet him, thank him for the 'experience', and compliment the work done on the whole party, or, in other words, kiss the man's uppity ass before clearing off, leaving one white clad body behind.

Black hair. Pensive green eyes that widened so slightly he doubted that anyone besides Aizen and himself would have been able to notice it, before the shock died down. 'This, my friend, is the woman I've been telling you about," Aizen stated, gesturing in the woman's direction.

The woman stretched her hand out in front of her, him gazing at it for a few moments before the fact that he was supposed to shake it clicked. Her grip was firm, hands soft, fitting into his perfectly, just as he remembered from the woman he used to know. Dainty, that's how he thought of them, which completely contradicted the force behind any hit she dealt.

She gave him a slight smile, the expression seeming half faked, before speaking, voice gentle and tinged with an unidentifiable accent. "It's very nice to meet you. I am Tia Harribel."

_Tia Harribel?_ He repeated the name within his head. _That's what she was going by now. _Of course he hadn't actually expected her to refer to herself as Neliel in his presence but still…something felt off about the way she had said it. Or possibly, that was her real name and the one he knew her by was false. A theory like that came as a surprise to him, because, despite how her whole disappearance brought upon the idea that he actually knew very little about the woman in front of him, being faced by her when she was with…_him_ only reaffirmed the fact. It was a strange feeling, something he had no interest in thinking about because all this time she had spent with him; it all could have been a lie. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to hate her for it. He was angry, don't mistake that he wasn't, but it wasn't directed at her. And that thought alone made him sick.

He pushed his thoughts away, focusing more on the woman in front of him, the woman he felt that he'd been waiting ages to see once more. And there she was, real and alive or maybe more dead than he'd ever seen her. Regardless, he put on his most charming smirk, keeping her hand in his much longer than the customary notion allowed. "The name's Grimmjow Jaggerjaquez, though I'm sure you're already familiar with that."

Not missing a beat, she oh so kindly pried her hand from his, replying aloof as ever, "Indeed I am. Aizen speaks very highly of you and any friend of his is a friend of mine."

There was a moment of silence between the three of them, in which Aizen's smirk grew across his face (most likely gaining joy from the unfortunance of the couple's situation), whilst Grimmjow fought off the urges to either punch the man next to him or "reconnect" with the woman in front of him. Both of those instincts were quite inappropriate for the given moment, but if something didn't happen soon, he could see himself submitting to one of them.

Luckily for him, something of the outrageous sort did happen, effectively distracting the trio from their own personal problems. A loud clatter had rang out from across the room, one of the caterers on the ground, face flushed and eyes filled with panic as she watched another figure being pulled forcefully out of the room. Grimmjow never caught sight of the person being escorted out was, nor did he get a glimpse of said escorter. All there really was to see was the woman on the ground that looked like she'd had a run in with death and death was a pervert.

The prominent man beside him let out a wistful whistle, not seeming to be the least bit concerned. "I see I'll have to deal with that little…disruption. I hope you two do play nice while in my absence. But not too nice…you know whose watching."

He watched Aizen stalk off before turning to the woman he believed to be, no, the woman who he _knew_ to be Nel, and just from one look at her face, he was pretty sure that last statement was directed at her. Brows furrowed she gazed solemnly at the man who was currently walking in the direction of the crowd, before her gaze switched to the woman on the ground, eyes now clouded with a lethal confusion. At that his gaze slightly softened, a slightly nostalgic feeling taking him over from the familiar look. It was her. Even when she was so different, she was still the same Nel.

And then he was forced to innerly sneer at himself, snorting at how much his last thoughts made him sound like a pussy. "You alright?" he asked offhandedly, acting as if he didn't care.

Her eyes easily slid over to meet his, and she nodded, the notion revealing nothing to him. "Just curious to what happened is all. I guess one of the guests might have had one too many drinks and caught a case of happy hands, huh?"

She gave him a breezy smile and he suddenly felt like a total dumbass. A dumbass because he had to stop himself from smiling back. A dumbass for the way his heart twitched slightly. A dumbass for even seeing something in her in the first place, and after everything that was going on, a dumbass for still feeling the same.

It disgusted him, really, to think about what she'd done to him. It wasn't even like back when all he'd wanted was to fuck her. It disgusted him because of how much he'd given to her, how much he was _still_ giving to her. And let's just say that it's a lot, because he's sure as hell never put so much on the line for anyone else.

He felt like he was back in high school again, trying to put the moves on someone who he obviously had no business trying to put said moves on as he gave her a smirk, which was better than that smile he was tempted to give but…damn. This all was making no sense to him seeing as he thought so highly of himself for not having to suffer too much through his 'awkward' years, but damn, he hated what she did to him. He hated every second of it and he loved it at the same time and…

"-so what do you think?"

He snapped back into reality, realizing he'd just spent the past five minutes with that stupid smirk on his face and had missed everything that'd been said. Of course, usually missing what she said wouldn't be that important since he believe that she talked entirely too much, but this was different.

She laughed slightly, taking his hands in hers before pulling him in. At first he thought this was a really strange way of her asking for something before she began to sway, and he realized she had wanted to dance. And normally even she couldn't make him prance around a dance floor like some sissy but he did anyways this time. You know, so he could one up Aizen. Yeah, that's definitely why he did it.

Regardless, they moved together, swaying slightly with the rest of the party goers, to the smooth jazz playing in the background. And inside of him the question began to grow. It grew larger and larger, swarming his mind, clouding his thoughts until he just had to ask. Until he just had to ruin all that they had finally rebuilt for the moment.

"Who is Tia?" he'd asked, and it was a simple question really. She could say herself, they'd carry on and forget all about it, except that wasn't what this was. And from the way she'd managed to stumble and step on his foot, he knew she was unaware of the implications behind his words, too.

"Sorry, sorry" she ushered out, brows furrowed once more as she stepped back a bit. "I just-"

"Forget it, just forget it," he demanded, trying to put an end to this before something he didn't want to happen did. "It's not important."

She nodded slowly, about to say something before they were interrupted by the pink haired man in white. "Please do excuse me for cutting in," the man drawled out, voice smug and overdone despite the fact that nothing too important was coming out, "but I must steal the lovely lady from you for a moment. There is urgent business to be attended to. But don't worry, you'll see her again."

Giving him one last indecipherable look over her shoulder, she disappeared into the crowd with the flamboyant man. "Pity she had to leave so soon." It was Aizen, the man taking advantage of his ability to pop up whenever he was least wanted. "Though I do trust the time between the two of you was good while it lasted."

Grimmjow didn't answer, fist clenching as anger flooded his body, leaving to go get a drink, the other man chuckling in the distance. The part seemed to drawl on from there, him never being able to catch sight of Kuchiki again. In his pocket, his phone began to vibrate, signaling a message from Kurosaki. Something was happening. He was about to check his phone when he saw her, black hair, cream skin, and all slipping out of the room. Message forgotten, he trailed after her with his eyes and as she disappeared, he rose to his feet, carrying off in her very direction.

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**AN: This chapter feels kind of corny to me. I don't know if it's how sappy Grimmjow sounds or how cheesy Aizen's speech is (though I do believe that fits his personality). Though all through writing this, I couldn't help thinking what Aizen's childhood was like. I think he used to get beat up…a lot. And all the other kids would steal his lunch money and his shoes until one day he finally snapped and alas, the Aizen we all know and love (maybe). Oh yeah, and Nel as (gasp!) another bleach character even though she now has green eyes and black hair like (gasp!) another different bleach character! I'm planning something crazy. (whooo! Typo officialy fixed. I aplogize to anyone who read the original version of this AN, and thanks to TheCatWithTheHat for pointing out the issue to me).**


	21. Chapter 20

**AN: This is the fastest update I've done in a while. And for a note, though this story is usually in 3****rd**** person from Grimmjow's perspective the ending is 3****rd**** person Nel's perspective.**

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**Chapter 20**

He followed her out of the hustle and bustle of the main party area into the much quieter area of the backend of the building. She made a right, her steps sure and determined, leading him to believe there was someplace she had actually planned to be.

Another turn, and they were in a new room, her stepping in first and him trailing in after taking a peek to make sure the coast was clear. She stepped into the room connected, leaving him behind the partition of the wall. So he walked in a little further, taking note of the lux furniture in the room. Two lush white couches, black pillows, and a polished black table. There was a mirror hanging on the wall, casting his reflection back onto him. It was fancy. It was spare.

From the other side of the wall he heard water running, alerting him to what he was in, the room turning out to be a bathroom, and a very fancy one with one of those lobby areas at that. So he figured nothing she was doing was all that scandalous, taking steps over to the separating walls and peering silently across them.

She was hanging up her phone, lying it down on the counter before looking into the mirror, face anxious and eyes tired, yet as hard as ever. Her hair, now died black, that had once seemed so glossy to him now appeared a more dull and limp. That confidence that had been so tightly built up appeared to be cracking. She looked horrible. She looked broken.

The knuckles of her hands turned white with the vice grip she had on the edge of the counter, muted subdued shivers wracking her body. But was she crying? No. It was even worse than that. In just a few moments she had managed to switch from being the stunning beauty of the party to the worn down woman before him. She was a mess. Hell, that wasn't even the tip of the ice berg. And not once did the strength in her eyes even waver.

This woman _was_ Nel. This woman _is_ Nel.

With that thought he felt himself stepping forward, body on auto pilot, revealing himself to the crowd of one. "Neliel." It was the first thing to come to his mid, the first word to come out of his mouth. And nothing else seemed fitting to take its place.

Brief recognition flashed through her eyes before turning to a fierce agitation. "My name is Tia. I've told you already." She eyed him warily through his reflection in the mirror. "I don't know who Nel is."

"Lies." The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. And even if he could have, he was pretty sure he wouldn't have wanted to. "That's a fucking lie Nel and you know it."

"No," she let out slowly, "it's the truth. My name is not Neliel. I've never met a Neliel, I've never seen a Neliel, and I most definitely have never known a Neliel. All I know is what I've heard. And from what I've heard, this Neliel woman is dead."

She said it so stone cold and heartless, not just as if she were sure of it, but as if she believed it. As if…she believed it herself.

"Liar," he growled out, stepping closer to her person.

She shook her head lightly, then harder. "No. No, no, no. I don't know what the hell kind of answer your looking for, but you're not going to get it from me. Now I would appreciate it if you would get the hell away from me."

A deep growl of frustration bubbled out from within his chest, the anger flooding his veins. And yet, he chose not to act on it. He chose to be "civil" and act as he had learned from her.

"What the fuck do you think this is going to accomplish, Nel?" he asked, the words coming out slow, voice dangerously low. "What do you think this is going to fix, huh? Do you think it'll take it all back? Do you think it'll patch everything up? Cause if you do, you're _wrong_. It's not going to ch-"

"Shut up!" The sharp shriek of the words cut him off unexpectedly. She was breathing heavy, fingers tangled in her hair as she switched her glares from the sink to the mirror and back again.

"You don't know," she whispered harshly. "You don't know _anything_!"

His hands curled into fists at her words. He wanted to hit something, he really truly did. But he didn't, he _couldn't_. "I know enough to realize that I won't let your fucking idiotic tendencies rip apart whatever the hell kind of shit we have between us."

_"Stop!"_ The word cut him off abruptly. "Just _stop_. I'm not…she's not…Nel is dead. Nel is dead. _Nel is dead_."

"Quit saying tha-"

_"Stop!"_ Another shriek. "Nel is dead, okay! The police accepted it. My friends accepted it! So why won't you? _Nel! Is! Dead!_ And she's not coming back."

His temper flared at her words. He was mad. No, that was an understatement. He was in catastrophic fury. At who? Her. Him. Them. They. Everyone and everything. And all he knew was that he had to get this through her thick skull.

Grabbing her arms, he pushed her up against the wall, glaring at her. "Look at me!" he shouted as she looked in every direction but his. "Look me in the eyes and repeat everything you just told me!" The heat in her eyes burned right through him, yet he wouldn't be moved. His grip tightened as his anger grew. The look in her eyes went from upset to the more familiar one, as if she was seeing right through him before turning to a softer expression. Poor and defenseless. Not a good look on her.

"Stop it," he seethed out through clenched teeth. _"Fucking stop it."_

The glare came back with his words, this time in a much milder state. "What do you want me to say?" she asked, voice soft and dangerous at the same time.

"Nothing."

He crushed his lips onto hers, pushing her harder up against the wall. He pressed into her, hand moving down to rest on her hips before trailing up her sides. He wanted her. He wanted every single thing she had to offer and more. And all she had to do, _all _she had to do was say yes.

Peachy lips remained closed, denying him the access he so desperately craved. His left hand traced circles on her hip bone, right hand trailing to the zipper on the back of her dress. He nipped at her lips, finally coaxing them open, allowing him the entrance he so craved for.

He ravished her, fueling all his pent up anger and frustration into the kiss. As far as he was concerned, she was his for the taking. He wouldn't say he owned her, but there was definitely a possibility that it worked the other way around.

His left hand left its post on her hip to wind into her hair, roaming over every ounce of her that it could reach along the way. It was good. It was _so_ good and he wanted so much more. But then he felt it.

He felt the hot tears falling from her eyes to press gentle kisses against his skin. He pulled away momentarily to see what this had become. That moment became his moment of vulnerability and it must have been all she needed. For in that moment of time, she must have drawn back into that crazy ass sense of control she had been holding onto.

The sharp pain in his nose came as a surprise to him, his body not recognizing what had just happened until he saw her fist drawing back. One second, it was them, and the next her hand was pistoning full speed into the center of his face. Pain resounded in the area in an on-off pattern, on being the dull thudding aches and off being the uncomfortable numbing.

In his moment of confusion she had managed to turn to tables on him, having him pressed up against the opposite wall, legs sprawled on the ground before him. Her hand clutched his shoulder tightly, holding him down, before loosening ever so slightly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, pushing a tissue to the nose he hadn't even realized was bleeding. "I'm so sorry it had to happen like this."

He pulled he in closer, voice filled with all the malice he could muster. "I'm sorry too."

Her eyes softened and she pulled the tissue away despite all the blood still on his face. Her lips brushed gently against his before she pulled away, breath ghosting his skin in soft puffs. A few moments passed and her lips were on his once more.

He couldn't think, all complex thought slipping from his mind to be replaced with the green light. _Go. Move._ Move closer to her, move his lips with hers, move her into him. His whole being seemed to mesh with hers in a way that he felt so sappy and not him, yet so undeniably _right._

He heard a sharp click, felt a quick sting to his neck, and water falling onto his skin. Opening eyes he couldn't even remember closing, he stared up at the automated sprinkler system above the, then down to Nel who was focused on his neck. Neck…neck…neck…his _neck_. The neck that she had just removed a needle from.

His heart thudded slowly in his ears as he looked around without a clue. "Wha-" he couldn't even finish the question. His tongue was dead weight in his mouth.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes red rimmed and puffy. "I'm so sorry."

Nel's lips pressed to his but this time he couldn't keep up. She finally broke away and he dully felt her face press into his chest as he looked up into the water pouring down, his vision growing blurry.

"I'm really, really sorry this had to happen," she whispered. "But you must understand that I can't let you throw your life away for a lost cause. Nel is dead. So please make it easier on the both of us by accepting it."

And everything went black.

* * *

Silence. Complete and empty, filling every fiber of the room. There was not a soul left in the whole venue, save for the two occupants who had missed their chance to leave with the rest of the crowd.

In the center of the room stood a woman, green hair dyed a now murky black. Eyes half lidded and glassy, she gazed aimlessly at the only other life form in the vicinity. Shocking blue hair matted to his face. Nose swollen and crooked. Face washed in a mixture of watery blood. Eyes closed, brows knitted, and mouth left open as if he were in the middle of a sentence when he went out.

Regret. Anger. Horror. Grief. The feelings welled up inside of the woman like a crazed rainbow. But it had to be done. It _had_ to. Because she'd rather face death than see him end up like her. A life for a life. And she was more than willing to trade hers for the sanctity of his.

From across the room there was a shrill ringing, causing the woman's gaze to be ripped from its blue haired target. She looked at her phone on the counter, ringing and buzzing its way through the slosh of water, overwhelming dread filling her as she watched it. Eyes unfocused, she picked it up on instinct bringing it up to her ear.

"Have you done what I've asked of you?"

No greeting, no hello. Just straight to business with him. Calling just to rub salt into the wound before the blood even had time to clot. But she knew why he did it. She was his favorite. Totally dispensable yet something he would never allow another to call their own.

"Yes. The message has been delivered." Her voice was so small in comparison to his.

"Good girl. I knew a second chance was all you needed to get your priorities straight. Let's just hope for everyone's sake that they stay that way."

With that being said, the line went dead, the dull buzz echoing out the room, the phone held limp in the woman's hand before slipping out her grasp and tumbling to the ground.

* * *

**AN: That was hard to write, especially the more "romantic" scenes because they always feel so awkward to me. I mean, really, making out with someone who is in the middle of crying or someone with bloody nose just doesn't do it for me.**


	22. Chapter 21

**AN: Yay! A new chapter! I will admit I wasn't planning to write on any of my stories this month because I'm doing nanowrimo this month and want to focus my attention on that, but sometimes I get a little thing called writer's block and apparently the cure is more of The Third, so expect more of these this November. Now, on to the story.**

* * *

**Chapter 21**

_ They were in a room. Dark and dank, water dripping down from the ceilings onto the dirty concrete below, the light plopping seeming almost thundering within the tense silence. Drip. Drip. Drip. The beats almost matched up with the thundering beating of the heart. Not his heart, her heart. Nel's heart._

_It thundered like a drum, the rhythm identifiable through the fabric of both of_

_their shirts. Thud. Thud. Thud. He almost expected her to be shaking, but contraire to that she was still, deathly still. Wide eyes gazed into nothing, looking into the darkness like a deer in headlights. Except there was nothing there, he'd made sure of that. Regardless, her lips were moving, forming things he couldn't understand._

_ "What is it?" he asked, voice dry and gruffer than he had intended._

_ "I'm sorry." The words were whispered and somehow familiar in his ears, as if he'd heard them many times before. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."_

_ "Nel?" he called softly, shaking her gently. She didn't respond, still looking off into the distance, eyes filled with fear. He looked back and saw nothing. Nothing but the black air around them that ghosted over everything. "Nel?" he asked again, this time shaking her a bit harder. "Nel?"_

_ "No!" The word was sharp, piercing the silence. She jolted in his arms, before pushing back hard._

_ "What the fuck?" The exclamation seemed to startle her even more. He tightened his grip attempting to pull her back, her fists pounding into his chest. "Nel!"_

_ "No! I already said no! Go away! Go away! _Go away!_" The fists came harder the more she went on and he was pretty sure he would be bruised in the morning. He reached a hand out to grab hers, missing the one that swung out to knick him in the jaw, sending a flash of pain through it. "Let go of me!"_

_ With that she gave a final pull, managing to rip herself out of his grasp, stumbling in her attempt to get away. He reached out, determined to not let her get away this time, calling her name, trying to make her remember who he was. His feet pounded against the floor, yet the distance between them grew. He pushed harder and was close enough to reach out and grab her, his fingers gracing the fabric of her sweater when he heard it._

_ He felt the pop in his ears, rib cage rattling at the sound. He _knew_ that sound, had heard it before, but even coupled with the shriek that followed he hoped it wasn't true. He hoped it was something, anything else._

_ In front of him she faltered, one step, then two before she came crashing down to her knees. He caught up to her then in two frantic strides, dropping down right beside her, forcing himself to deal with the image of her broken body below him._

_ Hands clutched to her abdomen, she took in deep breaths of air, eyes looking right through him, lips mouthing two words. 'Help me.' He moved to put pressure on the wound, looking down at her pained face._

_Her eyes swayed, moving to look past him to something off into the distance. Once again, he looked too, but this time he saw it. The looming figure shrouded in black, gun still pointed in their direction, hand quivering. And then slowly, ever so slowly, it made its way up until it was at the owner's own head. Barrel pressed to his temple, the man let out a slight croak, black eyes rattling. There was a final gunshot as the man pulled the trigger._

Bright light flooded his vision temporarily blinding him, as he closed his eyes to escape the pain. He let out a slight groan before trying again, this time slower in order to adjust. He saw white which held great contrast to the dream he'd awoken from. White walls, white bed, white furniture. It was so fucking sterile it burned his eyes and made his head hurt. Or maybe, it already was hurting and he just hadn't realized it until this point.

Thoughts slowing down, he tried to back track. He got an invitation. Check. Party. Check. Saw Nel. Check. And then…then…He searched through his mind looking for something he seemed to be forgetting. He went to Aizen's party saw Nel, was with Nel and… and…what next?

He couldn't remember, or maybe he didn't want to. His thoughts of the end of that night were murky and muddled, blended together. Something had happened and he was pretty sure it wasn't something nice.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shouting voices outside the room. He couldn't make out what they were saying and frankly, he didn't care. All he knew was that it was loud and causing an avalanche of pain within his head. He cursed and closed his eyes as another loud shout rang out, this one in close similarity to a battle cry.

He heard a thud, then a crash, so close that his eyes flew open on reflex, only to greet him with the sight of some creepy looking man on the floor of the room, bawling his eyes out and complaining about how cruel his son was "to daddy".

Eye twitching, Grimmjow let out another groan, irritation present. "Oh fuck." He was in a nut house.

At the sound of his voice, the man seemed to spring up, tears no longer present, finger pointed into the hallway, shouting an obnoxious, "You woke the patient!" It was then that Grimmjow realized the strange man had on a lab coat, clip board in hand. This guy was a doctor. And if his words were anything to go by, he was supposed to be the patient.

In from the door in the hallway walked Kurosaki, finger pointed, brows turned down in a perpetual frown, yet eyes wide. "_You_ woke the patient! Don't try to put this on me!" He crossed his arms gazing off to the side, looking very child-esque. "Besides, shouldn't you be checking on him anyways?"

The man gave a girlish cry of happiness, leaping slightly in the air. "Good job my son! You're catching on quick! You make Daddy so proud!" Eye twitching slightly, Grimmjow's wondered if he'd just heard the man correctly. Did he just say he was Kuroskai's father?

In reaction, the orangette's foot raised in a silent threat, that was easily unnecessary as his father had already turned in Grimmjow's direction, personality seeming to have done a complete 180. No longer was he a loud and obnoxious fool, his manors now more serious and 100% professional.

"How are you feeling son?" he asked gently. "You gave us quite a scare, the way you were passed out."

How did he feel? Grimmjow considered and came to one conclusion that described it all to a tee. "Like shit," he answered bluntly.

The man nodded, scribbling down on the clipboard as if Grimmjow had actually said something worthwhile. They went through a few tests, checked his eyes and ears and nose and all of that normal doctor crap, Kurosaki watching from his post against the door frame, but all through, he could tell the question was pressing. How had it come to this?

He knew the answer and he didn't. He knew that Nel had done something, but couldn't remember what. It was her, yes. But at the same time it wasn't. It was Aizen. It was always, Aizen. He was the puppet master, the one pulling the strings and controlling every person in his little game as if they were mere pawns in his giant game of chess. He hated it. He hated him. He hated everything.

The final tests wrapped up, yet the old man, Isshin, lingered, leaving him to believe the question was soon coming. Kurosaki made his way across the room, dragging a chair with him somewhere along the way and taking rest in it next to the bed. He was a little too close for Grimmjow's comfort, his gaze intense and mistrusting at the same time. Mistrusting of whom, though, was the real question posed here.

"What exactly happened last night?"

He had expected the question to have come from Kurosaki, who had actually been present during the event, but rather it was posed by Isshin. The man looked down at him, face intimidating, yet not all at the same time.

Grimmjow closed his eyes, trying to concentrate his thoughts back to that night. He remembered going to that party. He remembered that he met Aizen. He remembered Aizen introducing him to Nel. He remembered dancing…touches…her, wanting all of her. There was a bathroom and she was yelling…yelling at him. He remembered them being all over each other and then…something happened. Something changed. _She_ changed. _She _ended it.

_'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'_ Her eyes were red rimmed. She was crying? Why was she crying?

_'I'm really, really sorry this had to happen.'_ She was whispering. He remembered it. _'But you must understand that I can't let you throw your life away for a lost cause. Nel is dead. So please make it easier on the both of us by accepting it.'_

And then it had all gone black.

He remembered. He remembered it all. He remembered the needle. He remembered her injecting him with some shit that knocked him out and obviously had some adverse effects on his mind's state or something. She knew she was going to meet with him. She he was going to corner her. She knew this was all going to happen. And she did it all for _him._

"Fuck!" The word was out of his mouth before he even had a chance to think about it. For a moment he lost track of where he was, how he was, arms lashing out to hit anything, only to quickly be restrained and pushed back into the bed. He growled lowly, eyes looking around wildly and seeing nothing. He was mad, so mad. And then he was nothing. Just nothing.

His body slumped down, his energy seemingly drained out. He was tired. He was frustrated. He was irritated. He was fucked up and every other word in that category. Time seemed to play back in his head, and he knew that if he if it were possible to go back, he wouldn't change that night a bit, _couldn't_ change that night a bit. He didn't have the will power to have stayed away from her. He didn't give a shit about moderation and if there was rewind it would happen all the same every single time.

In the five minutes after his mellowing out, he was able to give a loose description of the events that had taken place the previous night. He met up with Aizen early on. Aizen showed interest in recruiting him, and then introduced him to Nel, as if the two had never met before. He met up with her later. She injected him with some drug and he passed out soon after. The end.

The story offered room for detail, and he was sure both men knew that they were being left out of some important details. Not things like him going at it with Nel. They were missing why she was doing all of this. They didn't know what had happened to her, what Aizen had _done_ to her. They didn't know how much she was getting crushed through the purpose of this. She was losing everything just because she wanted to make sure that he, not Aizen, but _Grimmjow_ himself stayed safe. As if that wasn't the most dumb as fuck excuse he had ever heard.

There was a set silence after the end of the story, all of it quite awkward and tense, as no one seemed to really know what the appropriate thing to say after such an incident was. It wasn't like anyone was going to try to comfort him or tell him that it was all going to be all right. Anything from that direction would be close to just telling him an all-out lie about how from now on life was going to be all sunshine and daisies and all that sappy crap.

Eventually the silence was broken, once again by Isshin telling him that he was "in manly health" despite the fact that he now had a broken nose and had been given a powerful drug cocktail by his girlfriend that had him out of it for more than 10 hours. Fortunately, his nose happened to be a pretty clean break (as clean as it can get when you get punched in the face) and there were no serious adverse effects of whatever shit he'd been given. Isshin left after giving him a few prescriptions and a follow up appointment. Fun.

It took a moment after the man left, before Kurosaki finally spoke to him for the first time that night. "I sent you the message and you didn't answer," he said. "I was trying to get the two of you out of there after I ran into some trouble with a couple of Aizen's men. They'd said something about how the place was going to get lit up. Rukia said she couldn't find you anywhere and ended up being shuffled out with the rest of the crowd during the panic of the sprinklers going off."

Bright orange eyebrows knitted together, the anger becoming noticeable on the man's face as he spoke. "I watched the news this morning and that party wasn't the only place that had experienced the panic of a fire that hadn't happened. There were five others. The first, third, and the fifth were real. The party was the sixth, fake like the other three. The strange thing is…they all happened within 10 to 15 minutes of each other.

"Funny, huh?" Kurosaki let out a dry chuckle, before his face became stony again, knuckles curling. "Not really. Because it was planned. It was all planned. He knew and he _still knows_."

"I know." And he did know. They both knew. "We have to stop this and we have to stop this soon. Aizen may have this all planned out, but there is piece to the equation that doesn't react on logic. That's our trump card."

"So you agree that we're going to speed the date of that meeting up, too, huh? I was feeling a little crazy for thinking it, but I guess it's settled. We're meeting Nnoitra Gilga."

* * *

In the middle of a dark alley a tall figure loomed, body leant against the wall, wide grin stretched across overly large teeth. His foot rested on a crumpled body, bleeding out on the ground, his fist raised up in the air as adrenaline pumped through his veins. It was good. It was _really_ good. But it wasn't enough. There was a bit more to be done. Just a tad. And then…then…he would finally rein victorious.

His head turned to the smaller figure entering his territory, grin never fading, in fact growing wider as he realized who this new addition was. "Do you feel it Tesla? Do you feel that it's all coming to an end? Finally, everything will be right!"

He laughed madly in satisfaction, head tilted back, the sound echoing loudly but was lost in the night. He punched the wall ferociously and laughed more the sound going on until he was stooped over clutching his sides before coming to a complete stop with one last thought.

"I hate this ending."

* * *

**AN: And it ends with a little bit from Nnoitra. Kind of a slow chapter, but I guess they can't all be fast paced (I actually don't think many of them ever were to begin with anyways). On the bright side my inspiration for this story is renewed. My only problem is not being able to remember how I spelled the incorrect versions of all the character's names. I guess I'll change it if anyone points out any inconstancies.**


	23. Chapter 22

**AN: Sorry for the long wait between chapters and for the fact that this one isn't that action packed or anything, but I felt I sort of needed something for all of this to be building off of, seeing as how I spent a long time planning out the final chapters (it's like a 5 page long plan) and have come to the conclusion that there are only about 4 chapters of this story left until the epilogue, so the final moment is coming near. The thing is, is that I sort of needed a reason for why the things that happened in those chapters would happen (I wrote like 5 different character bios to make motives and crap) because I can't stand when characters just randomly make actions in a story and I'm can't help thinking 'that's nice in all, but what inclines him to do that?' which is sort of the point of this.**

**P.S. This takes place about an hour after the end of the last chapter and the flashbacks are separate.**

* * *

**Chapter 22**

"It's nice that you think we should meet up with Nnoitra and shit, but how exactly do you plan on setting this up? You just gonna invite the guy over for a tea party or something so we can tell him that we're really upset with his actions?"

A plan is what Grimmjow had come to realize they were in desperate need of now. On a normal occasion he was more of the person pressing to just jump straight to the action without thinking too much about it, but even he knew enough to realize they were missing way too much information to blindly walk into the upcoming situation. Mainly, this was due to the fact that they really only knew one substantial piece of information on the guy, that piece being the man's name. Yeah, they were aware of his little 'hobbies' and his homies and general history with Nel, but that was pretty much where it all stopped. As far as they knew, Nnoitra could be practically anybody.

Now Grimmjow may not have been the sharpest crayon in the box, but he did like to think that he was quite street savvy. And he knew better than anyone that charging in with blind direction will land you nowhere but the hospital.

"We visit the diner he goes to. There's bound to be people he talks to there and I'm sure at least one of them will be willing to tell us something substantial about him," was the quick answer from Kurosaki, but that wasn't good enough for Grimmjow now. They were cutting it too close to the ending point of all of this. There was too much at stake to do anything that'd ruin it now.

"Visit and do what? You said we had to meet up with this guy but we don't know enough and there's no guarantee this will help us know enough!"

"Do you have a better idea?" That was a negative, though Grimmjow refused to admit to it aloud, simply crossing his arms and glaring down at the young man in front of him. By the way Kurosaki continued, he knew he didn't have to answer. They both already knew. "We have to start somewhere and this is as close as we're going to get right now. Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe we won't. We probably aren't ever going to manage to get a total upper hand, but as long as we have some form of leverage I'm positive we can do this. I'm positive we can save her."

The orange haired man's face spoke of his boyish determination. Typically such looks would have irritated Grimmjow, but to be fully honest, the feeling was slightly contagious. Of course, the look still did get on his nerves but he did somewhat feel what the boy was latching onto. He didn't feel it in the way where he planned to hold onto the childish idea that 'anything is possible if you just believe' but rather, in a way that reassured him of his own strength. In a way that reassured him of what they were all doing in the first place. They all were here to save Nel. He'd put all of this time and effort into and he knew that he'd be damned if he let her slip away.

By the next day, their 'plan' was set and ready to go into motion before night came around. Not that it really took that much brain power or effort for a few people to come to a decision to meet up at a specific place at a specific time. Other people did that every day, but he supposed that what they were doing wasn't quite like something normal people had to take part in. Because normal people _don't_ schedule times to meet up with people they _technically_ barely know so they can go find information on crazy men who are on a long winded attempt to kill their girlfriends. Though by this point, Grimmjow had come to realize, his life would probably never go back to being 'normal.'

He could have laughed at the irony behind this whole situation. Just a few months ago he was living a worry free life with Nel, living inside of their own carefree little world. And now…they were here, lost in the sea of all the fucked up shit Nel had managed to get herself into. You know, the crap he never thought he would ever have to worry about because he never even knew that any of these things were close to him. But apparently Nel had known enough to worry about these things. And based off of recent events, not only did she know enough to worry about them, she knew enough to do so in depth.

* * *

The wind swept icily over his face, toying with his hair, forcing everything around it to move with its silly little dance. It was mid fall, yet it still managed to feel a bit like summer. Warm enough to ditch the thicker jackets. Cold enough for him to know that shorts and a t-shirt weren't the brightest idea. Despite that, it was comfortable. _Quite _comfortable. Yet, he clenched the pencil in his hand tighter, glaring away at the blank whiteness of the sketch pad in front of him. '_Sketch something,'_ was the internal message streaming out from his mind. That's what he came here to do, wasn't it? '_Sketch something_.' But the message seemed to be constantly getting lost in translation.

Since the day Nel had first walked away, left, disappeared, or whatever you want to call it because he had no idea at this point, he hadn't been inclined to do anything. No sketching, no drawing, no painting. _Nothing._ At first he assumed it was some sort of twisted dependence he had in which all of his artistic abilities relied on her presence. Then he came to realize the fact that there _was_ a time in his life before Nel. A time where he sketched and painted, ignorant to the fact that there was even such a person as her. That time felt so far off.

_ He could feel the eyes boring into the back of his skull. They penetrated through layers and layers, sinking into the murky flesh of subconscious that he called his mind. It irked him, to say the least, disgusted him really, but those emotions weren't all entitled to the person whose gaze had landed upon him. They were aimed at himself. Because than any emotion those eyes brought upon, they brought a new wave of fear. Because he knew what they saw when they were looking at him. He knew what pieces they were trying to put together._

_ "It's a nice illustration, don't you think?" came a voice from behind him. He could vaguely recognize the masculine drawl, but didn't care to try and mentally place it with its owner. All he cared about was getting the hell out of this situation, before he managed to get dragged even further into places he had no business being in. He made to escape, only to be stopped by the hand that clutched onto his shoulder as the body it was attached to took its place next to him. "Whoever made it must be really proud."_

_ The man was too close, _much _too close, his body heat emanating all around him, his very being seeming to stretch to take up the whole hallway. But the boy refused to look up at him, instead keeping his glare trained on that picture in front of him. It was of a cat, a panther to be more specific, walking through an empty desert resting in the backset of a dark sky and empty moon. Black blood dribbled out of its clenched teeth and down the smooth bone like jaw, bright blue eyes glaring dangerously back at him. They were the only color in the picture. He saw it, looked through, around it, and at it, yet he still did not understand._

_ His eyes trailed down to the engraved gold plaque that rested underneath. _**1****st**** place; Pantera by Clark Benard.**_ "Yeah," the boy finally let out slowly, voice gruff from lack of use. "That Clark kid must be one very proud man."_

_ Those eyes were on him again, that burning gaze looking into him with full intensity. It made his stomach churn and ache, everything he had ever eaten seeming to have the collective wish to escape. The man knew. He _knew.

_ "You should come over and visit us at the studio some time. You might just enjoy it," the voice drawled out, tone smooth and even. He hated it. He absolutely _hated_ it. But lucky him, because the man seemed to take his cue to leave, stepping back, finally removing some of the claustrophobicness of the entire situation. "Goodbye…Mr. Jaggerjaquez."_

_ With that said the man left into the light of the empty hallway. But Grimmjow, he stayed, glare still focused at that picture in front of him. People came and went, passing him without a care as it slowly crept into the evening, yet he remained there as still and solitary as the picture that he'd managed to stay so focused on._

_ He could feel it. That pent up frustration and rage bubbling up inside of him, threatening to crawl out and show itself to the world. It festered, licking at the walls of the cage he was trying to lock it inside of, its tongue burning through it with acid until the moment when he was finally alone, the darkness of the night finally sweeping in the halls. And with the night came the anger that was determined and focused solely and completely on pouring out._

_ Fingers grasped onto the framed piece of 'artwork,' ripping it off the wall. He hurled it into nowhere, releasing a feral growl followed by a choked cry before finally the last wave came in the form of a frustrated shout that had been building up within him since the day he'd heard the final results. Since the day he'd been much too afraid to discover that he'd won._

_ He clutched his head, hands tangling in his unkempt blue hair, chest heaving as he rested his back against the wall. His knees gave out and he slid down into a crouch, body shaking with all the anger that he'd refused to let out._

_ Fuck Clark Benard. _This _was Pantera._

* * *

_"What's this?"_

_ Grimmjow didn't even compelled in the slightest to look up from the TV at the sound of the question. He'd already been forced to answer it about ten times in the past half hour after telling her that he didn't mind if she went through some of his older works. He was the one who had made the initial offer, feeling compelled to share with her, though he refused to simply tell that to her, bringing it up in a gruff question that had allowed her the opportunity to believe that it was her idea in the first place. It could be said that he was so easily letting her stare into his soul all barriers down, which he wouldn't totally disagree with. Then again, she'd shared more with him than the other way around, so he felt reason to let her in. Despite that, he was beginning to think that his 'offer' may not have been the best of his ideas._

_ The moment he'd given her the okay, she'd taken all sort of free reign to begin her 'adventure into the depths,' as she so called it, with great vigor. At first he'd found her antics semi amusing, but then she began to feel the need to ask questions. 'What's this?' 'Who's this?' 'What are these supposed to be?' 'Is this place real?' 'Where is it?' He couldn't tell if she was doing it on purpose or if she truly was curious about all the things he'd done. It was probably a sick combination of the two._

_ "It's a piece of artwork!" he snapped, as she asked the question again, not feeling the slightest bit guilty over the fact that he was rejoicing in her slight huff of anger at his answer. Maybe she'd be too upset to talk to him and he could finally enjoy his show in peace._

_ For a while that did seem to happen, but the enjoyment he received from it only managed to last about five minutes before he began to feel a bit on edge. It was quiet. Too quiet. He didn't notice it in the sense that Nel had managed to go more than three minutes without asking him a question, but rather, she'd gone even longer without making any sort of sound._

_ Reluctantly he rose from the couch, making his way to the studio he'd set up when he first moved into the apartment, eyes scanning the room for the woman before finally locking in on her form. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration, she gazed at a single piece in her hands. It was an unframed one, torn slightly, though assuming it was one of his earlier works, those weren't too uncommon features. But by the way she gazed up at him after sensing his presence, then back to the picture, and back to him all over again, he knew he had to take a look at this for himself. When he did see it he paused, all thoughts seeming to flood from his mind._

_Bright blue eyes glared up at him, pristine white bone figure nearly gleaming in the darkness of night. The moon shone overhead, lighting up the only soul in that empty desert world: the panther._

"_Who is this man?"_

The days of those memories seemed almost as if they happened a lifetime ago and he was reincarnated, looking back on his past life. It wasn't just the days when Nel was still physically constant, but rather, the days when he was totally ignorant of her existence. The past life was his younger years, in which he was a totally different person than the man anyone would see now.

Physically not much had changed. Yeah, he'd gotten more muscle mass, more scars, more height, and a better grip on what to do with his hair. But all the change came from within him. It was all the difference in his mental state. The ignorance was flushed out, the anger, more in his control instead of constantly eating him from the inside out. And he didn't flip out as much anymore either. Yet despite this, it still felt like that boy, the one from his memories, was still there and he was just waiting to come out.

Nel was right to ask him that question_. 'Who was that man?'_ That man was him. Another him. A _different_ him. It would be him always and forever, but if he were lucky, the two would never have the displeasure to meet.

The lead on his pencil snapped off, unable to withstand the force he used to shove it against the pad, leaving behind a thick and messy streak of black granite and an ugly indent that was never coming out. The sheet was no longer any good to him. It pissed him off, even though he had other sheets and he had more pencils, but he didn't feel like getting them out. He didn't feel up to doing anything.

Stuffing the pad of paper under his arm, he rose, immersed in the murky world of his thoughts, subconsciously recognizing where he was planning to go. To his car and onto the road so he could meet up with the others at the diner. There was a path, a map, and a destination, but he wasn't fully with it. He was flying on auto-pilot, his body relinquishing its control to other forces until the moment they'd managed to steer him wrong.

He felt the rough bump jostling him out of his thoughts, turning back swiftly to glare at the cause of the disturbance. Such cause was a man, abnormally tall and slim, looming like the trees around them, lit cigarette in hand, eye patch over his left eye, looking like a cheaply done pirate for a children's birthday party.

Grimmjow could practically feel the other man thinking equally cruel thoughts about him, if that wasn't made clear enough by the obvious glare at his hair, yet he knew that neither of them would say anything. They held heated glares until the tall man gave in first, taking a deep drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke out in his direction, before turning around with a light 'tch.'

He didn't hang around to watch the man leave. The vibes he was picking up were bad, but he couldn't strike the feeling that something about that man was familiar. Something about that man was worth remembering and not just so he could kick the guy's ass later. No, vibe was telling him that he better watch his back because he would see that man again.

* * *

**AN: This was actually originally going to be longer, but in relation to the other chapters, it felt out of place to me, so I decided to break it in half and end it here. I'm not happy with the words count, but I can't really start stretching chapters to 5,000-6,000 words at this point. But, the next chapter will be up tomorrow, so that makes up for it in my mind. Oh and a flashback that was actually about Grimmjow! It was kind of odd to write, but I didn't mind too much. I like the difference between the old him (which in terms of the anger thing reminds me more of the actual Grimmjow character in opposition with the elements I've added to him for the story).**


	24. Chapter 23

**AN: Well…this is probably the fastest I've updated in a long time, and I'm probably going to come across some mistake in it that will cause me to repost it later, but either way, enjoy.**

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**Chapter 23**

The diner that they met up at was in one of the seedier parts of town, which based on the character of the man they knew to frequent it, wasn't that shocking to any of them. The red leather on the booths was faded, the tables nicely polished to show off their worn and aged perfection. It was a quant place, in all actuality, each employee boasting genuine attitudes rather than the fake and cheery smiles he frequently saw at the restaurants he went to. He could see why Nel would like it, seeing as how she liked to feel surrounded by friends. And he had to admit, it was nice enough. He'd be willing to bet that it'd be even nicer if it weren't for that cook who kept making side long glances in the direction of their booth.

Grimmjow guessed the man must have been the owner, of the fact that everyone kept calling him 'Vinnie' and they _were_ in Vinnie's Diner. But he supposed he could understand why there was reason to look. This was a family diner and it could be bad for business if a couple of _hooligans_ like him and Kurosaki decided to try and stir up trouble. Because that's just what he came here to do, wasn't it?

"What are you two glaring at?" was the question posed by the only semi-normal one out of the trio.

At that, Grimmjow's sight turned back to his fries, unaware of the fact that he'd had his glare going in full heat. Not that the greasy cook didn't deserve it._ 'So Ichigo noticed too, eh?' h_e thought to himself. It was easy for one to assume that after years of these sort of looks being thrown at his 'gene code dysfunction' that he'd be used to it, and in a way he sort of was. But that didn't mean he enjoyed being looked at like an attraction in the circus's freak show. Add that with the fact that he now had to roll with the carrot top named strawberry and the pipsqueak, and it was easy to realize that that aspect of his life could go nowhere but down south.

"That old man…he keeps trying to stare us down," quipped Kurosaki.

"Staring us down? You two have to be the most paranoid people on Earth. That guy has to be _at least_ 50 and I doubt he's going to try and pull a fast one. You two are the ones staring him down. He's probably half way to a heart attack right now; of course he'll be looking. You guys may not have noticed this, but people think you look 'threatening'."

"Scaring him, eh?" Grimmjow mused thoughtfully, finding the idea near laughable. "I'll give him something to be scared about." With that said he turned to look at the older man, locking his eyes with the aged and calculating ones behind the counter. "I know the hair's distracting, but I'm pretty sure this ain't no paid entertainment. I'm feeling a little low on the customer service, eh? I'm beginning to feel like I don't _belong_."

_"Grimmjow!"_ Rukia's cry at his rudeness didn't faze him one bit, and it seems it had failed to faze the man the man at the stove either, his calculating gaze still strong as ever, looking at him as if he was the world's hardest puzzle and the winner was going to get eternal knowledge if they solved it. In fact, it seemed the man was out right ignoring the fact that Grimmjow had even said anything.

"Hey! Did ya' hear-"

"You look very familiar, young man." The older male cut him off, voice even as he spoke, each word sounding overly thoughtful as if he were saying it as he considered each word in his mind. "I can't strike this feeling that I've seen you somewhere before. Have we met?"

Now Grimmjow wasn't expecting much, but it definitely wasn't that. He was generally a really difficult person to mistake for someone else, seeing the blue hair was an easily definable trait. But the man's words…they were spoken with such honesty and conviction it was almost scary. Grimmjow simply let out a slight snort, a little less angered by the situation. "Well I ain't ever seen your face anywhere before in my whole life and I doubt we'd met in a past one."

A thoughtful _'hm'_ came from the older man who took the next few moments to continue looking at him, though he'd already moved onto to the next thing in his life, consequently taking a bite out of his burger. Eventually the man turned away to go back to flipping his patties, Grimmjow finally relaxing once those eyes had finally moved their concentration to a different subject.

"So either of you guys see anybody who could be of any help?" Ichigo finally asked, breaking the tense silence that had managed to settle upon them after the little 'incident'.

"No," Rukia answered. "This place is actually pretty empty. The best we could probably do right now is converse with some of the waiters and the owner though I suppose the last half to that equation might already have been _blown out of the question_." The biting end of Rukia's comment had obviously been aimed at Grimmjow, though he refused to acknowledge it, simply crossing his arms and announcing that he was going to go to the bathroom, weakly ordering them to get started on their 'investigation' in his absence.

He did his business, washing his hands after in the porcelain sink that seemed to be the only thing in the whole entire place that didn't hold some image of vintage timelessness, standing out like a sore thumb among the décor. His eyes flicked up to the mirror and there he saw it, the name scrawled across the tiles of the opposite walls.

_'Neliel.'_

Groaning to himself, he figured that he must driving himself mad with anxiety, thinking of her everywhere he went like some overdramatic sap in a cheesy romance movie. He roughly tore off a sheet of paper towel, eyes unconsciously flicking back to that mirror again. It was _still _there. Perhaps he wasn't going crazy. Perhaps, it was real. Nonetheless, it couldn't hurt anything to check, could it?

He tossed the used towel in the trash, before turning back to examine that back wall lined in pristine white tile. They were quite clean actually, give or take a few expected cracks, making the task of finding the one he was looking for pretty easy. And there it was, plain as day, waiting, beckoning, for someone to come find it and read the message it held: _I'll love you forever ~Neliel._ The name at the end was more of a signature than anything, a claim as to who owned these words, and he'd recognize it anywhere.

Unconsciously his fingers reached out, lightly tracing over the swooping letter in wonder. They were old and faded, probably written with some cheap permanent maker. It was her. He could feel it. It _had _to be her.

The blow to him was delivered in the fact that the words weren't recent, which was something he'd immediately_ known_, but hadn't actually _realized_. And with that, he knew, they definitely weren't directed at him. That only left one possible candidate he could think of, the only person who logically could have filled in that blank at the time: Nnoitra Gilga.

He took a look at the words once more, whispering them bitterly to himself. _'I'll love you forever.' _Forever must not be a long time….or maybe, forever had yet to come to an end. Those two were definitely still keeping a lookout for each other for whatever reasons they deemed fit, and while he highly doubted that Nel was fucking the other guy behind his back, he was pretty sure some connection had to still be there or else Nnoitra wouldn't have a part in all of this.

Grimmjow hated that, just the mere thought of it. He wasn't jealous, no, it definitely wasn't _that_. But rather he was unhappy with how close he was getting to the root of this specific problem. He knew by now that it probably was held somewhere in this diner. Obviously even if Nnoitra didn't use to come here, Nel sure did. And now that guy did, too, faithfully and religiously as if he were getting paid to show up. That guy came here because of her. Why though? _Why?_ That was the question. Because for some reason Nel was risking her life for something pertaining to this guy. He didn't fully understand it, but he was _so close_ to getting that understanding. Yet, when it came to the areas where it counted, he was miles away.

He left the bathroom more unsatisfied than he had been when he'd initially come in. Patience was definitely not his best virtue and he was pushing himself to his limit by waiting for information to appear like this. By this point nothing would make him happier than to just leave and come back tomorrow. As if they actually had time for that…

He made his way back out into the diner, intent on paying and getting the hell out of there. Rukia had said it herself, the only info they could get from here was from those waiters and he was pretty sure if he went on they'd end up going backwards instead of making any progress.

"Excuse me, young man." It's the old guy again, the owner of the diner.

"Look, I'm planning on paying just like everyone else, okay? No need to worry about tha-"

"I now know where I've seen you before."

The phrasing of the statement was peculiar and the fact that the man was still on that subject _did_ spike his interest. He spared the man a sidelong glance, untrusting of what he had to say. Obviously the man had to be delusional in some way, but he supposed he could humor it. He may even find out some information he needed to know. "Really?"

"Follow me." With the wave of a hand, the owner motioned him into the back of the diner, where he assumed the man's office area was set up. He was right, actually, following him into the somewhat cramped area that held a desk riddled in stacks of papers and receipts. There were pictures all over, speaking that this place definitely was the other guy's home away from home.

The old man made his way to a cork board in the back, riddled with even more photos, poor illustrations, and writings. His finger came to rest on a particular picture that he seemed to gaze at thoughtfully, his eyes holding a saddened nostalgia. "I almost missed it at first, but I was stopping back here and I saw it and instantly remembered."

Grimmjow's eyes followed the picture at which it had landed, his brows wrinkling in his confusion as he looked at it. Green hair thrown back with the wind, smile on her face, the pink birthmark and jagged scar that marred her face on display to the world. His eyes widened, and he took a step back as he gazed at it. "Nel." He'd barely even recognized his own voice saying it.

"So it really is you." The old man, went to sit behind his desk in his chair, but Grimmjow stayed, unable to rip his eyes from the image. He remembered that day. He'd taken her to a theme park, she'd never been before. She wanted to take a picture, but he'd refused, eventually giving in, scowl on his face. But in contrast, she was happy. Unnaturally so, for something that had seemed so small to him.

"Fuck." He drawled the word out under his breath, streaming it out as long as he could.

"These people are like family to me," the old man began. "These are the ones who treat my home as theirs, my most treasured customers, though that doesn't really do them justice. That girl-" he gestured to the picture of Nel "-I met her back a couple years after she'd initially moved in. She was always with this taller fellow, that's who her original picture was with, till she came to me one day, begging I switch them out. I tell her 'It's no big deal, but who's this?' and she says to me that he's someone very important to her. She hopes I can meet him one day, but she doesn't know how well that'd play over.

"I didn't understand at the time, but I suppose I can understand it a bit now. She hasn't come back in a real long time, see? She used to come no matter how bad things were. I ask her 'why don't you just run away from this?' I asked her every time she came. And she told me that she would if she wanted to." The man let out a bitter chuckle. "She should have left. She should have, but then the incident happened and…and…Have you seen her?"

The question came out as a desperate plea, but Grimmjow's attention had long since been caught by something else. "No. She disappeared a while back. I'm trying to find her, but...what was this_ incident_?"

The old man let out something of a pained moan. "Incident? No...I can't…"

"You can't?" Grimmjow questioned. "I'm sure you can! If you know something, you have to _tell me!_ I _have_ to know!"

"I can't…I don't even _know_...Nobody knows…"

The anger filled him at the fact that what he needed to know, the very thing that he came here for was right in front of him, he could taste it and everything, but he couldn't know. He wasn't being told. His fist slammed into the wall._ "Fine."_ And he left, going back into the white of the diner, the door slamming behind him in his absence. He threw down the money for his food, making his way to the diner's exit, passing a small blonde man on his way out. Across from the man was a taller one, inky black hair pulled over half of his face eye patch over his left eye. The taller one glared at him all the way out.

* * *

The moment he got home he broke out the computer, sifting through the internet for the so called 'incident', quickly realizing that his lack of information was a problem. He only knew that it involved Nel and most likely happened in Vinnie's Diner. Not that either were subjects that were easy to look into. Other than in his paintings, Nel had managed to be pretty much nonexistent and the diner wasn't all that famous either. He mainly came past articles congratulating it, most of them talking about various awards it'd won and what the locals had to say about the place. But then he'd finally stumbled across it, the diamond in the rough.

The article was marked for 3 years ago and was rather small, though through further reading he could figure out why. It spoke of an incident in the diner in which an unidentified man had slammed a younger woman's head into a bathroom sink, fracturing her skull. From there it went onto talk about women's safety and how to keep things like this from happening to you.

It wasn't much, but it was enough for Grimmjow to get a vague idea of what had happened. Based on the scar on Nel's head, the woman in the article was indeed her and he had a pretty good idea who this 'unidentified' man was. He went back to the search page, this time looking for another article of this particular incident, only coming up with two more.

One claimed that the woman attacked the man in the bathroom and the man reacted in self-defense before going on to complain about how unsafe bathrooms were and the ethics behind trying to keep such remote locations safe. It pointed the blame at the owner, which Grimmjow supposed, was the probably what owner actually did think. The third went more in depth into how these sorts of things are the results of our freedoms and how we should take such instances into our own hands.

All of the information from the articles was vague, but Grimmjow could easily come to a conclusion on what had happened. Though he wasn't sure who'd started it, Nnoitra _had_ slammed Nel's head into that bathroom sink, probably the reason why the diner now had a new one. No charges had been pressed, seeing as it had been stated in every article that it had been settled out of court with the intervention of an unnamed third party. This was probably due to Aizen who, if he'd let this go on, would have been at risk for revealing himself to the world with the Espada.

In the midst of this conclusion, came a knock on Grimmjow's door, disrupting him from his thoughts. He made his way to answer it, eyebrow rising at the sight of a drenched Kurosaki. But the expression soon changed as he realized the dead serious look on the young man's face.

"Tesla, Nnoitra's friend, he tracked me down after our little visit to the diner. He said that Nnoitra wanted him to deliver a message…" Ichigo's fists clenched and he looked down at the floor.

"Well, what is it?"

"He said…be at the warehouse tomorrow. Or Nnoitra would 'blow the brains out of your little doll'."

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**AN: Tesla's message didn't sound very much like him at all in my ears. Then again, he was quoting Nnoitra. Anyways, I've found a theme song of sorts that sort of fits the whole relationship Nnoitra has with Nel in this story (believe it or not, I've had to do a lot of thinking into how **_**that **_**worked out) well…I suppose it's a more darker take on the song to make it actually fit their relationship in the story…though I suppose if any of you guys listened to it, it probably wouldn't make much sense since I haven't actually described those two's past. Eh…you guys should check it out anyways (I wrote half the chapter to it). It's Vomit by Girls (I've been obsessed with them lately for some strange reason).**

**Oh and sorry if there's something wrong with the text of the story. My computer kept cutting random stuf out as I was writing and semi-editing, but I promise I'll fix anything that's wrong when I can finally gain control of it again.**


	25. Chapter 24

**AN: I'm back and proud to say that there is only one more chapter of this story until the epilogue! I actually thought this would be out faster, but I got held up, caught a bad case of writer's block, and when I finally did begin writing this chapter, I spent a week in the research and editing stage. I'm still not sure if this is totally what I was looking for (who am I kidding, this will never turn out exactly how I want it) but I figured that if I screwed with it anymore to try and fix it, there would be nothing left in the chapter to ever post. Oh and as a prior warning this chapter contains implied drug abuse and something of violence and a whole lot of profanity.**

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**Chapter 24**

Grimmjow hated that he had to realize the total and completely fucked up truth of reality, that being the fact that the world will not stop for shit. Not death. Not tragedy. And most definitely not when the prospect of one's life is being questioned. This wasn't a movie. The heavens weren't going to shed tears for his situation. Strangers weren't going to stop him on the street to give him advice or wish him luck on a task of which they were ignorant of. Crap like that didn't actually happen. People gotta work, gotta make money, gotta support themselves and their families. Most importantly though, people gotta _move_. Yeah, that's what the world would always do. Move. Life stops for no one.

It took hours for all the information to finally settle into Grimmjow's mind. Simpleton he was not, but he was human and all humans have their limit. New facts to process, theories to rule out, plans to gather, and emotions to store and lock up for later. Always thinking, thinking, thinking. He couldn't stop thinking long enough to even do something as simple as feel. To regret…no, scratch that. _All he did_ was regret. Regret the fact that he'd allowed Nel to get away. Regret the fact that he'd had to draw other people in to fix 'his' problems. Regret how close he'd been to stopping it all and he'd chose to do nothing. He'd done _nothing._

All that time he'd had multiple opportunities to bring this whole 'game' to a close. He'd faced the root of Nel's most present evil on at least 3 different accounts, maybe even more, without ever even realizing. That's right; he finally knew who Nnoitra was. The looming giant guy from Aizen's party. The strange man from the park who was giving him bad vibes. The guy with the eye patch at the diner. It was him every time and he hadn't even realized. But he could bet that the situation did not go vice versa. He could bet Nnoitra knew about Grimmjow from the beginning.

Ichigo was the one who had to point it out. The one who had told him exactly who Tesla was at that diner. The one who had to point out all that he'd gathered about each man's appearances just for Grimmjow to be able to make some sort of recollection. And when he finally realized it he absolutely _loathed _himself.

But what could he do about it now? They knew _nothing._ Nnoitra was the one with the upper hand. He had the territory, the time, the means, and, most importantly, the _will_ to act. The guy was crazy, the idea absolutely set in his mind that he had to harm Nel and the only thing Grimmjow could do was make some feeble attempt to get her back.

It could all be a trap, a setup that would result in one of them losing their life, but what could he do but _try_? The police couldn't bail him out. He hadn't talked to any of his friends in ages. He didn't have the time or money to get professional help. Sure he had Kurosaki and Kuchiki, but what were they worth when it all came down to it? In the end it was just Grimmjow alone off to try to make a difference. Once again, he was that lone creature stalking that endless desert sand.

The anger finally flooded into his body with that thought, warping his mind, closing in over his body. He could not, _would not,_ go back to what he once was. Dirty pasts pave way to cleaner futures and he'd rather die than know that he had the opportunity to pave that way for Nel's and didn't _act._

For the first time in hours he rose off of his bed, feet guiding him across the cold ground, mind on auto-pilot. Out the bedroom, through the kitchen, deep in the living room, and into the studio. The place was a wreck, a mess of chaos that looked just as helpless as he would not dare allow himself to feel. He waded in hands feeling around blindly before coming to that hard case. Finger fumbled for the key, inserting the shirt rod into the lock, the chambers falling into place with an audible 'click'. He reached in, feeling how cool it was against his fingers, trying to get used to the weight in his hands. Trying to get the feel. The oh so familiar feel.

* * *

An hour later and he was in the car with Kurosaki, the trading of MapQuest directions being the only thing to break their tense silence. The girl wasn't with them, left at home on Kurosaki's 'suggestion'. The guy didn't want to risk it. Grimmjow was jealous that the other man even had the opportunity.

They pulled up to the warehouse without a plan of action. There was nothing they could plan for. They knew the who, Nel and Nnoitra, but were ultimately lacking in the when, where, what, and why. They didn't know exactly when anything would happen, where it was truly going to go down, what would play out, or even why it would have to go that way. The lack of solid or even theoretical information all translated into a loss of a firm plan. They'd go in, look for the guy and wing it. What could they really do better?

From the moment the car was put in park though, Grimmjow realized they had a major miscalculation in their plan. The fact that it would just be Nnoitra and Tesla. It was obviously more than that just by the noise. There were others. Many others.

Grimmjow walked in stone cold, Kurosaki following after, the bass pounding against his ear drums, vibrating his skin. A thick cloud of nearly tangible smoke flooded the air, seemingly never-ending, the area warm in comparison to the cool night air just outside. Was this really the place they were supposed to be at? Did they get it wrong? Or perhaps, that was the point. He'd show up, but couldn't do anything. Not with all these people in the way. But Nnoitra, he knew the man didn't care if anyone else got hurt in the process of his game. He'd pull in and harm anyone as long as he received some sort of success in the end. It was a smart move on the tall man's part. Grimmjow was out of his element, unable to think too much and completely unprepared.

They split up, weaving in and out of people in hope of finding one of the 3 people who could give them leverage in the situation, out of each other's sight, but not out of reach. And there Grimmjow saw him, the large figure on a couch in the corner, looming over the 2 women he was with, arms draped across their shoulders, smoke blowing out his lips, glass in hand, cigarette in the other, feet propped up on the table in front of him.

The anger once again flooded his body, surfing through his veins, clenching at his chest. Fingers twitched in anticipation, foot ready to storm over there and end it all at once. He could. He knew he could. No. He knew he _couldn't._ Mind over matter, the challenge was in battling his instincts. Forcing his brain to go against the primal wishes inside him that urged him on to rip the man in front of him in two.

He stepped back, painfully, regretfully, doing his best to fade into the background. He had to find Nel first_. She_ was the main priority. He couldn't risk his actions screwing her over. So he stuck it out, allowing the crowd to sweep him away. He barked at everyone who got too close, while trying not to cross the line of appearing a bit too out of place, though by the end, he'd long since stopped caring.

It was in that lost moment of caring that she finally appeared. Green hair swept messily over her shoulder, dress clinging to her body, sultry smirk on her face, eyes half lidded and smoldering. She was with another man, hanging onto him like a her life depended on it, laughing at whatever half-witted wad of shit was coming out of his lips. She led him to the area once occupied by the ever disappearing Nnoitra, her lips nuzzling the other man's neck. She whispered something in his ear, giggled, before Grimmjow finally had to rip his eyes away.

When he looked back, he could finally understand the point of the whole venture, the little white lines stretched across the flat surface, the rolled up bill in the man's hand. He looked off, not wanting to force himself to bear witness. It made sense. Find a willing participant and coax them into 'trying out' the product so they'll come back later looking to seal the deal.

He didn't hate her for it, _couldn't_ hate her for it. Not even if he wanted to. And damn, did he want to. He wanted to blame it on her, all the problems all of the things she made him feel. And damn, did he feel. Confusion. Anger. Sorrow. Betrayal. It wasn't for her though. None of it was at her, but rather at himself. At how he couldn't keep the control he'd always wished to have.

The sound of a gunshot being set off ripped him out of his thoughts, tore him back into a startled reality mixed with shrill screams and coarse laughter. He jittered in place, looking left and right. Nobody was panicking. But he was. Because Nel was no longer where she last was, her place next to that man now filled by some other woman.

When he did see her, she was making her way across the room. He pushed through, trailing after, not wanting to lose sight of her, while not exactly wanting to be in her sight. Not yet. _Not yet._

"Why the hurry to get away?" Grimmjow heard a smooth voice purr into his ear, the hot breath tickling his skin. Not exactly pleasant, definitely unexpected, and completely frustrating. A woman pressed against him, giving him a devilish smirk. "We have _all_ the time in the world."

"Not interested." The words tore out of his mouth lightning speed as he made to tear away, stopped as another woman came from the other side.

"You're _so tense._ I bet we could help you relax a bit. Enjoy yourself."

"Not interested," he ground out again, this time more firm. But the women were relentless, holding him up as Nel walked right out through another door. His nerves went haywire, lashing out against two as the Mr. Nice guy act finally collapsed. "Get the fuck off-"

His words are lost in the midst of the sound of gunfire. It visibly startles the women who jolt off him in shock, leaving him with the opportunity to finally break off in the direction he saw Nel head. The door she went through was left ajar, leading him down an old flight of stairs and down into a much quieter level of the building.

It was dank and cold, the light much dimmer, casting shadows over everything. He hears murmuring, the voice low and rough, none of the words the slightest bit intelligible. Silencing his footsteps, he creeps in, unable to put a place to where the sound is coming from, wary of his surroundings. The low mumbles flood through his ears until his brain can process who it is. Nnoitra. Nnoitra with Nel.

He freezes, body locking up, mind racing to fuel his brain with images of the thousands of different scenarios that could be playing out right in front of him. All the 'what ifs' cloud his senses, pumping thought after tragedy struck thought into his mind. And then he hears it the, stark crack and whimper of pain followed by shouting.

"Answer me! Fucking answer me or I swear-"

The anger and anxiety fueled his body, controlling his senses, sending him into motion. He didn't think, just rushed in, the weapon he'd been hiding away all night drawn and ready to unleash its power. His mind went haywire, clouded with red hot rage, staining his vision in its dangerous film as he dashed around. Her, him, he didn't _care_ which he saw first. Protect her, kill him. Kill him, protect her. Either way was fine with him. Perfectly fine, that is, until he saw the situation.

Over in the corner stood a hunched over Nnoitra, Nel keeled over, blood dripping from her mouth, barrel of a gun held in spindly fingers pressed to her temple. Her eyes were closed, body taking in shaky breaths of air. Nnoitra's head was down, trained on the woman in front of him. An opening, an easy opening. Grimmjow's finger was already itching for that finger; just pull the trigger and it would all-

"Don't even bother trying that." The words came from the taller man's mouth, shot clear across the room, halting Grimmjow in his actions. "Of course, if you really want, go ahead, pull the trigger. Just take a go at killing me. I'll pull too. I bet we know which bullet will hit its target first."

Grimmjow didn't shoot, wouldn't dare risk it. Cornered and helpless like a scared cat about to meet its maker. And his life wasn't even the one on stake. He took a step forward, gun still drawn, anger barely suppressed, but he was sure if either of the two were to look up they'd see it in his eyes. Not the anger, but the fear. The all-consuming and overwhelming fear that came with the fact that he was being forced to realize just how extremely real this situation was. This was no action movie. She'd die if he took that moment to try and play the hero.

He took a step forward, inching closer, closer until he saw that finger on the trigger twitch to shoot. At that moment he froze, locked into that one position, as close to Nel as he could possibly get. He needed to be close. Close enough to play on the only advantage in this situation that he'd ever get.

The advantage was the difference between Nel's two evils, Aizen and the tall man in front of him. Aizen was cool and collected. Calculating to pieces, planning for any and every situation, probably even for this situation. Nnoitra did not possess that. Obviously he could plan, could think, could take the time to calculate, but he could _not_ control the most important factor in his plan. The fact that anyone could realize is that Nnoitra was a man who could not control the emotion inside him. Whatever he felt for Nel must have festered and warped over time. That emotion was the only thing that could tear him apart.

"It was useless for you to have come here, ya' know?" came that half crazed voice across the room.

"Useless?" Grimmjow prodded, easily taking the bait, or perhaps it was the other way around. "The hell it ain't!"

Nnoitra gave a sick chuckle at his words. "If that's what you think, you must be the dumbest fucker on the block. This bitch ain't worth nothing. She's damaged goods, not useful for anything anymore. Went out and got herself fucked up in the head and she'll always be like that. You know that, right? You know she's crazy and will make you play her little games with her. But no…_no._ I don't play games with damaged shit.

"She can't do nothing. Ain't worth nothing, just taking up space. Practically broken. Like diseased puppy. She's sick. _Sick!_ But that's fine. She can think she is whatever she wants. But if she's truly sick I can do her a favor. Show her what happens when bitches have no use anymore, get sick and can't do nothing. They get _put down_."

With a sharp intake of breath Grimmjow's finger tightens, ready to pull-

"She fucking deserves it!"

The words catch him off guard. He didn't care to hear this guy's sob story, to listen to the tragic romance that happened between the two. All he wanted was Nel. That was all. But she was something hard to take when the finger on that other man's trigger began wavering with the overflowing release of emotion shooting from that man, gun pressing harder against her temple.

"Hey, dude just-"

"I'll fucking kill her for what she did to me! She ain't just gonna keep followin' me like this! Fucking screwing up everything, huntin' me down like I'm some kinda' animal! I'll show you an animal! I'll show you what you wanted to see all along, a fucking monster!_ Is that what you wanted? Huh?_" He trailed off there, body shaking in quick spasms, before he began to speak again, his voice dropping several octaves. "I hate the fact that you're still breathing. I can't live knowing that I didn't put an end to it."

"Then don't."

The soft voice is unexpected by both men, Grimmjow stepping back even though all he wanted was to get closer. She didn't look up at either of them, body still limp and unmoving, as if the words had never even left her mouth. She didn't put up the slightest resistance, didn't even attempt to stop her captor.

She gave a soft sigh before saying anything else. "If you can't bring yourself to understand why I left, then don't exert yourself into the stress of trying." She paused for a moment, before finally lifting her head up, eyes slightly dazed, blood drying on her bruising jaw. That was the extent of what Grimmjow saw. She wasn't looking at him, or anywhere near him for that matter, attention fully and one-hundred percent focused on Nnoitra. "It's not worth it. In truth, it was your lack of comprehension that led to why I left and it is with undignified arrogance that you assume my actions were fueled by something as strong as hate. In fact-"

"I don't care about your fucking facts and shitty logic! Don't fucking _patronize_ me! I _put up_ with you! I even _looked_ for you! _Every fucking day!_ You were contagious! You made me like this! _You_ did it! And I fucking _let_ you and that's how you repay me! You sent everything to _hell!_ You-you-you…ARRAGH!"

The gun in Nnoitra's hand pistoned out, striking Nel across the side of the head, sending her onto the ground, before he pulled the trigger. At the exact same moment, Grimmjow's finger finally pulled back, body withstanding the slight recoil as the bullet shot out.

"Fuck!" The cry ripped from Nnoitra's open mouth as he glared down at Nel's body, his breaths labored as crimson began to seep through his abdomen. "I'll _kill_ you! _I'll fuckin' kill you!_"

And Grimmjow knew this was still not directed at him, the other man's focus solely trained on Nel. Nel who lay on the ground, not even attempting to get away, practically beckoning the crazed man to put a bullet in her because he obviously missed the first time.

"You're _weak!_ Why don't even you _try_ move! Do something! _Do something!_ Don't fuckin' belittle me like this, bringing me down to your level! You deserve to die! I'll splatter your blood up and down these fucking walls for all the shit you've done! I'll fucking kill-"

Nnoitra never finished his sentence, his own finger pulling down on the trigger as gunshots rang out.

* * *

**AN: Well there it is. Sorry if the ending upsets anyone (well…not really, but that sounds way polite, right?) but I love a cliffhanger and I've been planning for that ending to the chapter for the past few months (the idea for the transition from the end of the chapter to the beginning of the next is one of the few that I never changed). Feel free to tell me what you think! Well, I'm off to eat some buffalo wings!**


	26. Chapter 25

**AN: So this is the last chapter (well there's an epilogue coming up but that doesn't really count). I don't really want to say anything about it, or else I'd kind of spoil it. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy it (well, as much as you can without being too much of a sadist).**

* * *

**Chapter 25**

There was a cough, a sputter as the gun fell out of Nnoitra's newly blood soaked and torn hand and onto the ground with an echoing thud. The man's clean hand went to his chest as he coughed up blood, mouth open as if to give one last statement, a final few words that would somehow make a difference, somehow change the course to end up as he had wanted, whatever it was that he had wanted. Grimmjow never heard what the man had to say. No one did because with a final gurgle he fell to the ground in a heap. Nnoitra Gilga was dead.

For a moment all was silent. All Grimmjow could hear were Nel's unsteady breaths and the sound of his own heart pounding deafeninngly in his ears, overflown with adrenaline. Confused. It was the least he could say to describe what was going on inside himself. It hadn't actually set in yet that the danger was over. But as soon as he hears the start of a single person's applause followed by the footsteps taken in overpriced Italian shoes, he realized the battle was only half done.

His head darted to the source of the sound, watching a new man, a new danger appear from the shadows. The man was tall and lean dressed in a finely pressed white suit, a condescending smirk on his face as his clapping slows to a standstill. Brown hair was messily swept back in a 'care-free' style save for one stray lock that feel in his face. The man was familiar. _Very familiar_. All it took was one glance into eyes that once feigned warmth but now held a cynical amusement for the name to match back up with the face. This man was Souske Aizen.

"I will admit," began the humor tinted smooth voice, "I didn't think you had it in you at first. I didn't think that you would have it within you to take the life of another man, but I suppose when pushed to the edge, anything is possible. Whether this was intentional or not, though, I must thank you. It's saddens me when what was once a useful pawn becomes such a burden."

With that said the man took a long look at the dead body before him, head shaking as if he was actually moved by this man's death. Grimmjow knew better. This guy wasn't sad, in fact he'd inadvertedly done the man a favor. And Aizen knew it. He knew it from the very beginning which is exactly why he dealt the man a shot to the hand leaving the blow that would kill him all to Grimmjow.

It was intimidating, really to be there at that moment. Aizen was a problem that Grimmjow couldn't find out. Nnoitra, he continually fell victim to his emotions just like any other human being. But with Aizen, that emotion was nearly non-existent. He couldn't see anything, plan, theorize, or predict anything about the man. Souske Aizen was one hundred percent empty.

That was the scary part, the part that brought chills racing down Grimmjow's spine and what caused the anger to boil within the pit of his stomach in a mentally decapitating stew. And as he watched those eyes travel from Nnoitra's dead body to the living one of Nel that lay in front of it, he knew that nothing good could come from it. The eyes sparked, lighting up with amusement at the sight of her frail body, the smirk spreading wider on his face.

"Clean up the last of your mess woman." Nel didn't answer, not giving an actual denial or affirmation of the request, simply letting out a shaky breath before looking up at Aizen with pleading eyes. He stared down at her, a crazed sort of amusement shining within, revealing how power hungry he really was before he gave her a taunting nod. "Go on. Just fix what you started and we can pretend that you never caused any of this to happen."

It wasn't until that moment that Grimmjow finally found it in himself to breakout of his uncharacteristic silence. He was tired of all these people treating Nel like dirt. Talking to her like she wasn't worth anything, as if she was the real cause of everything that had happened. Truth was, he could trace every single thing that had happened to the person who was piling the fault on her now. He could trace everything back to Aizen.

If he hadn't ever taken her in she never would have had to touch anything illegal. No one would have ever had that leverage to control her life. She never would have been under Aizen's control. Then she never would have met Nnoitra. They never would have had a falling out. And the both of them would probably be alive and well right now. If it hadn't been for Aizen, then nothing ever would have happened. If it hadn't been for Aizen every single one of them could have had a better chance for a real future. But now, they only had the ones he chose out for them.

"Bullshit," Grimmjow let out bitterly, eyes glaring at the man in front him.

"Excuse me?" Aizen questioned, not the least bit offended.

"You heard me," Grimmjow pressed. "She didn't cause _shit._ None of this is her fault. If she had never even met _you_ none of this would have happened."

"Really?" The arrogant voice called out, tainted with a pensive quality. "Are you suggesting that had she not met me, she could have had a better life?" He let out a deep chuckle. "I beg to differ. Neliel was on the way to ruins before I even met her. In fact, I didn't meet her until she was in a holding cell for a crime that me nor any of my colleagues could believe she'd commit. I took pity on her, took her under my wing, into my care. I made her _great._ Of course greatness comes at a cost, but I'm pretty sure the price is much better than the outcome that would have followed her had she _not_ taken up my originally offer. Because from the beginning she's always had the choice to leave and she was the one pledged alliance. Is it truly my fault that she chose to stay by my side?

"She never had the option of a good life. The cards were stacked against her from the start. It was really by a spot of luck that I found her. For that you should thank me. _She_ does. And _this_ is her repayment to me. _This_ is how she proves her loyalty."

"Don't fucking talk about her like that!"

"Have you heard her object?"

Grimmjow doesn't have to answer that. He can see it on her face. Her shaky arms lifting up her body, as her hand reaches for Nnoitra's gun. And there's no doubt in his mind that she's not planning on using it on Aizen.

He rushed over, as she grabed onto it, pulling her into his arms, feeling the softness of her skin against him. She's shivering frantically, fingers clutching at his jacket as her face buries into his chest and in that moment he'd never seen her look more broken. And he knew exactly who broke her.

In a stroke of deja' vu, he was shouting, "I'll kill you. I'll fucking kill you!" His gun is once again drawn, aimed at Aizen ready to make the shot.

The man doesn't appear the slightest bit fearful, not that Grimmjow really expected that, the smirk still ever present on his face. "I highly doubt that. I'm not the one who's dying tonight. It must be terrible to go out by the hand of your loved one. Though I will admit, I find this to be quite the pity. I would have liked to see you become very successful Mr. Jaggerjaquez."

"What the hell are you-"

"Shoot him Neliel."

The words roll off the man's tongue on what feels like an unexpected whim, startling Grimmjow as he feels the metal pressing against his chest, cold and unforgiving. He takes this moment to look down only seeing the mass of green hair tainted with pink, the first thing he noticed when he originally saw her. But this is nothing like that moment. This woman is cold and worn, and has allowed herself to give up. Somehow, though, he believes the girl he first met is still there somewhere and he's convinced he can bring her back out.

"Don't do this Nel! Don't listen to him! He can't do anything for you! He won't do anything!" He shook her, shook her hard and fast, hoping to bring the sense back to her but she didn't waver.

His brows furrowed, eyes beginning to sting with emotion, before he finally stopped, hand trailing to cup her chin, tilting her head up to his, fighting against the ounce of resistance she put up. She didn't look at him, eyes staring anywhere but at his own, the hazel glassed over with unshed tears, the side of her face puffy from where she'd been struck, blood dried to her skin, and face pale. "You don't have to let him control you anymore…"

"I have to do it," she finally answered. "I have to do it or nothing can ever be right again." It was as if she hadn't heard a thing he'd said, as if the words had never came out of his mouth. "If I do this, then-"

"Shut up!" He cut her off, fingers gripping too hard into her skin, the gentleness over as he moved to wrestle the gun out of her hand, unprepared from the strike delivered to the side of his face the moment his hand touched hers.

"Stop it!" she shrieked as he stumbled back. "Stop making this harder than it has to be!" But as he draws her in closer, unwavering in his intents. "Let go of me!" She's pounding her hands against his chest, the danger obviously there in the action but he doesn't care. He locks in his grip on her, frustrated that she won't just listen to him. But as she finally breaks and the dams flood, the tears falling freely from her eyes, he supposes he can somewhat understand.

The gun is back against his chest, this time by his own hand as he looks down at her face, trying to imprint the memory of her into his mind. "If you're going to do it, than fine. Go ahead, pussy out and shoot me. Prove him right. I don't fucking _care._ But if you do, you better not let me die in vain."

Grimmjow pushed down the anger, pushed down the fear, pushed away everything in that moment except for him and Nel. Leaning down he pressed his lips to her forehead in a soft kiss, one of the few he'd ever given in his entire life. He was willing to make the sacrifice. He put her finger to the trigger, hand lingering there in hesitation.

In the background there was Aizen, his dull voice coaxing Nel one final time. "Kill him."

She looked up at Grimmjow, tears soaking into his shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…" The same word flooded out of her mouth as he felt her finally pull the trigger.

He didn't feel anything as the blood splattered on his chest, his eyes beginning to blur over as he felt the panicked heaves of Nel's chest against his, followed by a sob, before she let out a final scream blood curdling screams that died halfway out her throat. And with that, a final shot rings out.

The soft white faded into his vision, clouding everything around him, wrapping him up in a cloud. White walls, white ceiling, white sky. Everything. It wasn't painful though, rather a gentle and welcome comfort, followed by a sense of déjà vu as if he'd had this very experience before. As if he'd already lived through it twice over.

* * *

_His fingers twitched, relishing in the smooth skin underneath them, causing a flurry of feminine giggles to sprout. He looked over, tracing the cause of the laughter, waiting for his vision to finally go into focus. He saw green and pink resting on a soft cream, all wrapped in a robe of white. Nel. It was Nel._

_She looked up at him, hazel eyes wide and unblinking as her fingers silently laced into his. Interlocked hands were brought to her chest. She gave him a crooked grin, humming softly. Her lips begin to move, tracing out words, but no sound comes out, as if someone has hit the universal mute button._

_He can make out a few words. _Marionette …dolls …strings ….cut …acting ….creation …failure…_They're all specific things that make no sense to him in the stream of things, and the words slip out of her mouth too fast for him to keep up. But one thing he's sure he won't do is ask her to slow down. He doesn't want to break her pace, to stop her for even a moment. All he wants is to imprint this in his mind totally and forever._

_His rough fingers traced over the back of her hand as he finally begins to stop trying to figure out what she's saying and just let the moment wash over him instead. She glances up at him, shy smile on her face as if to alert him that she's done. Her eyes flash, fingers giving his hand a reassuring squeeze and shocks race down his arm. It's not one of those cheesy romance novel kind, the ones that are associated with butterflies. It's the startling kind, the ones that tell you that you've forgotten something important._

_Her eyes glaze over as she stares out into nowhere, eyes easily unfocused. The light plays out against them, illuminating his reflection and he's startled by what he sees. The mangled and ugly pink flesh of a scar stretched down the expanse of his bare chest. The faint blue markings under his eye. And the most startling part, the lack of skin attached to the bone of his right jaw, leaving the teeth and bone to visible to those cursed enough to see it. _Monster._ He'd become a monster._

"_I thought you would save me."_

_The words kick him out his trance, out his mind as they slip from her lips. Face still far away, eyes locked onto some target that he was positive he'd never see. "I trusted you to be there," she said. "But you weren't. Have I failed or have you, who I gave my heart to hold. Or perhaps, we both failed. We both failed each other."_

_He's frozen, unable to move as the lights begin to swarm, playing tricks on his eyes. She's there, then she's not, before coming back again. Here. There. On. Off. On. Off. And this time it stays that way. The darkness invades his senses, wrapping tightly around everything, smuggling up all the sound with it. Just an empty space of forever._

_He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, the blood pulsing through his veins as panic sets in. But most importantly he can feel her, her cool skin underneath his fingers, her grip tightening on his hand, almost painfully, clutching as if her life depended on it._

_Then he hears it, the chilling sound nearly rupturing what feels like newly virgin ears gaining their first taste of the sense. Loud and pain filled screams rip through the darkness, shredding it all away revealing her. Nel's there right in front of him, close enough to touch, but he can't move forward. Held back, a set of meaty hands wrap themselves around him, forcing him to just sit there and watch the terror in front of him as scream after scream floods from her lips until she finally goes limp on the ground._

_Agony clenches in his gut as he fights against his captor, causing himself more injury than anyone else in his vigor to get away. To get to her. The grip steels around him as a cloaked figure glides into his vision, black robes kissing the ground with every movement. It stops at her body, finger running across the length of her face and all Grimmjow could think about was how badly he wanted those filthy fingers off of her pure skin._

"_Don't touch her!" he shouted, his voice feeling primal even to his ears, raw in his throat; "Don't fucking touch her!"_

_The cloaked figure turned to face him, finger outstretched._

'Your time here is done.'

_The voice is one he knows but he didn't waste time trying to place it. He didn't listen, struggling more than ever, fighting tooth and nail even though there was no chance of him winning. The body behinds shift and he cranes his head to snarl at it. The cloaked man behind him doesn't respond to his actions, nodding his head to his friend before pulling him out of the light._

_The scene before him fades, twisting with the speed at which they are moving before tilting as they come to a dizzyingly fast stop. He's pushed to his knees, arms immediately chained to the ground like a prisoner being forced to pay for all his sins. Breath ragged, he feels the shame tugging in the pit of his stomach._

_He'd failed her. He'd failed _them.

_Hollow. It was the only word to describe it as if he'd lost something vitally important and he had. The figures make their way in front of him, heading off into the vacant expanse before him. They turned right before they were out of his sight, fingers moving to the hoods masking their faces._

_Straight, blonde hair fell over a long pale face. Shaggy brown hair surrounded another, this one round and large. Two men that he'd seen before many times. Their normally joking and smiling faces clouded with stony and hard cut expressions. Their eyes bore into his skin, lighting it afire with their morbid and stony nature. Pesche and Dondochakka._

'Goodbye Grimmjow Jaggerjaquez. Goodbye forever.'

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**AN: So yes I totally reused the whole stopping at the gunshots thing, so it's unclear who died and even more so terrible than that, this is in fact the last chapter. Sue me (Haha, I'm thinking about Guys and Dolls now). I mean, Grimmjow really had to take a more "passive" roll in this, which I don't think exactly fits the character. According to a friend of mine, it seemed as if he had given up (ironic because the Grimmjow from the series would never do that). I wouldn't exactly call it my best work (especially the dream part), but…yeah. I guess all that's left now is the epilogue (which I hope will surprise you guys and tie up all these loose ends).**


	27. Epilogue

**AN: Well this ending is not anything like what I expected it would be. For one, it's much shorter than I thought it would be, left out half of what I thought would go in it, and was more difficult to type than I expected. Despite it all, this is the end (though I plan to go back and edit this story because there is just this gigantic amount of errors and typos in it that I've been pretending not to notice).**

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**Epilogue**

**Time:** The system of those sequential relations that any event has to another, as past, present, or future.

In the park there is a man. Wild blue hair, tanned skin, angry azure eyes. He's sitting at the base of a tree, sketchbook in hand, creating the image of what he sees in front of him. Lush trees, green grass, wildflowers, and the small pond somewhere off the paved path before him. But the man, he does not only see what is in front of him, but what's beyond him. He sees what we do not. He sees a woman, dancing across the page, hair blowing in the imaginary wind, head thrown back in laughter. But before the picture even has the oppportunity to come to life, it dies. A pencil stroke misplaced, a growl of frustration escaping snarled lips as he rips from one page to the new blank one that follows.

Over and over this process repeats as the sun begins to set. His sketches do not mature into completion. Despite the anger, the frustration, and distress played out upon the man's face, it is fine. The man has time. Much time to be spent.

Across town there is a woman. Green hair draped over her shoulders, eyes shut and hand clutched to her chest as she writhes around seemingly in agony. Her limbs tangle within white sheets, mouth open in a silent scream, sweat dripping down her face. She locks up, body frozen in the moment before her eyes flash up and she rises. Panicked breaths escape her mouth eyes still holding the terror collected within her dreams.

She looks left and right, body relaxing as the seconds tick by. The door opens and an auburn haired woman enters. Expression meek, she walks to the bed, stopping halfway there. "Ar-Are you alright?" the woman asks softly. "I thought I heard-" She freezes at the sight of the woman before her, who is in the process of getting up and gathering her things.

"I'm fine. I just had a bad dream is all. Don't worry," the green haired woman replies, brushing her hair out her face after taking hold of her coat.

"Where are you going?"

"Out. I need fresh air."

"But what about-"

"I'm fine," the green haired woman gives her a reassuring smile. "I promise."

With that being said, she leaves the apartment, traveling out into the people littered street. She takes each of them in with fresh eyes, pace slower than that of everyone around her. She kept to herself, stayed to her own.

She makes her way out to a park, eyes drawn to blue haired man with a sketchbook clutched in his fingers. Pencil in hand, face scrunched in concentration but eyes lacking in resolve. Footsteps hushed, she makes her way to him until they are mere inches apart, peeking over his shoulder to see what he's so focused on.

"Grimmjow Jaggerjaquez," she said softly, her words nearly lost in the gentle winds. "That's your name, correct?" She asks, as he finally realizes her presence. The man before her took in a sharp breath, body tensing as she continued, leaning in even closer, eyes scrutinizing his work. "It's a lovely picture you've made here, albeit, a little…unfinished. Though of course, it is quite…familiar."

For a moment she was silent, seemingly in thought, as she made her way around to face him, dropping onto the unoccupied ground there. "I remember now. It was a painting that I saw that bore an uncanny resemblance to me. Green with a splash of pink. I was at the exhibit, you were there too, refusing to sell the painting to anyone for any amount of cash. But if it makes you feel better, I understand your reasoning. The work was too magnificent for what any of them had planned for it. But next time, if you're going to use me as your inspiration, I'd prefer if you'd ask me beforehand."

He looked at her, eyes holding both challenge and promise rolled into one. Perhaps, the challenge to see if this woman was who she appeared to be and the promise to stay with her if she were. "You're crazy woman."

Her brows furrowed before her face settled into a more mischievous smirk. "Most likely so."

* * *

**AN: So I suppose this actually doesn't answer as many questions from last chapter as I had promised it would, but I suppose the main thing to remember is that it proves that Nel and Grimmjow didn't die. Or, maybe they did die and came back some years later in reincarnations of themselves. Both conclusions are possible (even though the last one is quite a stretch) and you guys may feel free to come to your own. Either way, I might expand on this (which is why there are so many loose ends) but in case I choose not to I think you all should know what happened last chapter. Nel shot herself rather than Grimmjow so that he could live on with his life uninterrupted by her (she felt it unfair for him to die for her decisions) and Aizen shot him once he figured out what Nel did (as if Aizen would let him live to go and tell the story to others). I was thinking about furthering the epilogue to explain that, but it just felt finished once I got to the ending that mimics the flashback from chapter 7 (which is currently in all italics because my computer kept messing up all my edits from that chapter).**

**With Love and Eskimos,**

**hts911**


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